Categories | Women's magazine |
---|---|
Frequency | Monthly |
First issue | March 1965 |
Final issue | October 1975 |
Company | IPC |
Country | United Kingdom |
Based in | London |
Language | English |
ISSN | 0029-4977 |
Nova was a British glossy magazine that was published from March 1965 [1] [2] to October 1975 [1] [3] It was described by The Times as "a politically radical, beautifully designed, intellectual women's magazine." [4] Nova covered such once-taboo subjects as abortion, cancer, the birth control pill, race, homosexuality, divorce and royal affairs. It featured stylish and provocative cover images. [1]
Founded by the magazine publishing company George Newnes, part of the International Publishing Corporation (known informally as IPC), Nova was initially edited by Harry Fieldhouse and described itself as "A new kind of magazine for the new kind of woman". From its seventh edition Dennis Hackett took over as editor with Kevin d'Arcy as assistant editor, Harri Peccinotti as art editor, Alma Birk as editorial adviser, [5] with Penny Vincenzi and later Molly Parkin and Caroline Baker as fashion editors. David Gibbs's comprehensive anthology [1] of Nova pages and images says of Parkin, who trained as a painter: "A dynamic sense of colour and design was all she needed to guide her. Unfettered by the accepted wisdom of the fashion system, she introduced an unconventional and startling view of what women could wear... always teasing the edges of taste... She set the standard."
At Nova, Peccinotti became one of the first professional photographers to use black models extensively in his fashion shoots. [6] He stated in an interview: “Nova started as an experiment. The thinking behind it came from the fact that there were no magazines at the time for intelligent women... The women’s liberation movement was strong and there were a lot of good female writers. Nova’s aim was to talk about what women were really interested in: politics, careers, health, sex. George Newnes threw some money in, just to see if anyone was interested in a magazine like that, and so it started.” [7]
The distinctive Nova headline font, adapted by Pentagram from a vintage woodcut typeface, became a formative influence on typography for many years. As part of a revolution in graphic design led by the progenitors Town , Queen , Elle and The Sunday Times Magazine , Nova took specific inspiration from the universally admired German magazine Twen . [8] At Nova between 1966 and 1969 Derek Birdsall, John Blackburn and Bill Fallover continued expanding the role of a magazine art director who on some titles assumed a role as powerful as its editors. [1]
Long-form contributors to Nova included such notable and disparate writers as Graham Greene, Lynda Lee-Potter, Christopher Booker, Susan Sontag, Kenneth Allsop, Robert Robinson, Elizabeth David, with agony aunt Irma Kurtz and astrologer Patric Walker [9] making his name as Novalis. [4] [1] Nova also published the autobiographical writing of Arthur Hopcraft, later expanded into his 1970 book The Great Apple Raid and Other Encounters of a Tin Chapel Tiro. [10] In the early 1970s it featured experimental "impressionistic" fashion photographs by Helmut Newton, Don McCullin, Hans Feurer and Terence Donovan. [4] [11] Illustrators included Mel Calman and Stewart Mackinnon. [12]
Nova's radical approach to female liberation aroused men's curiosity too and it became famous in publishing circles as a woman's magazine that had more male readers than female, which was an aspect of its financial decline during the economic crisis of the 1970s. [13]
The magazine was revived in May 2000, but it lasted just 13 issues, closing with its June 2001 issue. [14]
Hillman and Peccinotti’s history of the magazine, Nova 1965-75, was reissued in September 2019 with a new introduction. [15]
In 2024, Guy Chambers released a track entitled 'Nova' [16] marking the content and existence of the magazine.
Events from the year 1719 in Canada.
The Australian Women's Weekly, sometimes known simply as The Weekly, is an Australian monthly women's magazine published by Are Media in Sydney and founded in 1933. For many years it was the number one magazine in Australia before being outsold by the Australian edition of Better Homes and Gardens in 2014. As of February 2019, The Weekly has overtaken Better Homes and Gardens again, coming out on top as Australia's most read magazine. The magazine invested in the 2020 film I Am Woman about Helen Reddy, singer and feminist icon.
Martin Roger Seymour-Smith was a British poet, literary critic, and biographer.
Sir George Newnes, 1st Baronet was a British publisher and editor and a founding figure in popular journalism. Newnes also served as a Liberal Party Member of Parliament for two decades. His company, George Newnes Ltd, was known for such periodicals as Tit-Bits and The Strand Magazine; it continued publishing consumer magazines such as Nova long after his death.
John Edward McKenzie Lucie-Smith, known as Edward Lucie-Smith, is a Jamaican-born English writer, poet, art critic, curator and broadcaster. He has been highly prolific in these fields, writing or editing over a hundred books, his subjects gradually shifting around the late 1960s from mostly literature to mostly art.
The International Best Dressed Hall of Fame List was founded by fashionista Eleanor Lambert in 1940 as an attempt to boost the reputation of American fashion at the time. The American magazine Vanity Fair is currently in charge of the List after Lambert left the responsibility to "four friends at Vanity Fair" in 2002, a year before her death.
Sir John Winthrop Hackett Sr., generally known as "Winthrop Hackett", was a proprietor and editor of several newspapers in Western Australia, a politician and a university chancellor.
Geraldine Stutz was an American retail groundbreaker. She was appointed president of Henri Bendel in 1957, serving for 29 years until stepping down in 1986.
Woman's Own is a British lifestyle magazine aimed at women.
Molly Parkin is a Welsh painter, novelist and journalist, who became most well-known for her work on Nova magazine, newspapers and television in the 1960s.
British Vogue is a British fashion magazine based in London and first published in 1916. It is the British edition of the American magazine Vogue and is owned and distributed by Condé Nast. Currently edited by Edward Enninful, British Vogue is said to link fashion to high society and class, teaching its readers how to 'assume a distinctively chic and modern appearance'.
Willington Independent Preparatory School is situated in Wimbledon, south-west London.
Harry Peccinotti is an English photographer, best known for his erotic work, most famously two Pirelli Calendars published in 1968 and 1969. He remains an influential figure in art and fashion photography.
The 1964 Grand National was the 118th renewal of the Grand National horse race that took place at Aintree Racecourse near Liverpool, England, on 21 March 1964. Thirty-three horses ran and the race was won narrowly by American-owned 12-year-old Team Spirit, at odds of 18/1. He was ridden by jockey Willie Robinson and trained by Fulke Walwyn.
Dame Elizabeth Audrey Withers OBE, known as Audrey Withers, was an English journalist, also active as a member of the Council of Industrial Design. She edited the British magazine Vogue between 1940 and 1960 and was the author of The Palaces of Leningrad (1973) and an autobiography.
Events from the year 1714 in Canada.
Dennis Hackett was a British magazine and newspaper editor whom many would say played significant roles on game-changing publications that reshaped the language of British journalism.
George Newnes Ltd is a British publisher. The company was founded in 1891 by George Newnes (1851–1910), considered a founding father of popular journalism. Newnes published such magazines and periodicals as Tit-Bits, The Wide World Magazine, The Captain, The Strand Magazine, The Grand Magazine, John O'London's Weekly, Sunny Stories for Little Folk, Woman's Own, and the "Practical" line of magazines overseen by editor Frederick J. Camm. Long after the founder's death, Newnes was known for publishing ground-breaking consumer magazines such as Nova.
Patric William Walker was an American-born, British astrologer. Walker's columns, famed for their literary style, appeared in numerous publications throughout the world, leading to claims that he had a readership of one billion.
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