Mark Pack

The Guardian reports:

IPC Media’s Essentials will no longer feature models or celebrities on its front cover after a survey of readers suggested they preferred to see “real women”.

The October edition of the monthly is entirely model- and celebrity-free and is the climax of a social media campaign to find 10 real women to put on its front cover. The magazine claimed it was a “UK media first for women’s glossies”.

Essentials’ editor, Jules Barton-Breck, said: “So many of these women look, and are, amazing that we wanted to celebrate them. In our recent reader survey 70% told us that they would rather see a real woman on the cover of a magazine than a celebrity, so we’re excited to be the first magazine in the UK to do this every month.”

You can read the full story here. The move echoes the campaigns run by the Liberal Democrats and others over representation (and misrepresentation) of women in the media and advertising, which you can read more about in our previous posts on the subject.