Flair magazine's twelve covers

Flair magazine was published between February 1950 and the last issue in January 1951. The editor was Fleur Cowles who always wanted to publish a title full of culture for city living elites. Whenever you read about the magazine now, writers always enthuse about how different it was from other magazines on the newsstand decades ago. It did this by printing and production techniques.

    Each cover had a die-cut revealing part of an image on page three, the July issue had part of the sleeve embossed at the bottom left, several smaller booklets were bound into various issues, concertina fold-outs and half pages, fold-outs with die-cut shapes to be lifted open to expose another image. All of these printing techniques were to get the magazine talked about and it worked, for a while but the cost of this extravagant production was more per copy than the cover price, despite the income that ad pages generated and after twelve issues that was the end.  

    Flair wasn't a particularly well designed though, the covers alone, with various type faces for the masthead, reveal that. The page design inside was very conservative looking with the bland use of pictures, graphics and dull typography.

    At the same time as Flair there was another new magazine published, designed by Alexey Brodovitch, the Art Director of Harper's Bazaar and aimed at the same audience. Portfolio also had bound-in extras but the design was completely different. This was a beautifully crafted magazine, highly visual and because it had no advertising the editorial had extra punch. Sadly it only lasted for three quarterly issues from winter 1950 to the summer of 1951. There are three covers after the Flair ones below.

    Rizzoli have published The best of Flair, a 338 page lavish book with lots of the bound-in extras that made the title so different. Look inside the book at Westread Book Reviews then click 2021 and January.