“Did you see those pants?” asked Kate White as she sat down with a glass of red wine at the wine-barrel table where I was writing down my impressions of, among other things, the flamenco pants. White, 61, is the laser-blue-eyed editor of Cosmo U.S., the mother ship, or Big Cosmo, as it’s called by other editors. During White’s 14-year tenure, the magazine has increased its U.S. circulation to 3 million readers, from 2.3 million, and introduced 22 international editions for a total of 64, including spinoffs. (By comparison, Marie Claire has 35 international editions, and Glamour has 16). She’s dazzling but relaxed, with a full, frequent laugh. She is the Bill Clinton of Cosmic, the charming and influential American, the unofficial boss of bosses, toward whom her international counterparts gravitate. Her book, “I Shouldn’t Be Telling You This: Success Secrets Every Gutsy Girl Should Know,” is due out in September.
White also wastes no time. Within minutes she was asking me whether and when I want to marry, whether and when I want to have kids, whether I’d want to marry but not have kids and whether I’d consider freezing my eggs. I was surprised by my answers, not knowing I had them until I heard myself telling her, with no hesitation, that I did want to marry and have kids but that I thought I’d be O.K. if neither happened and that work was more important to me at the moment (perhaps to the detriment of those things) and a number of other personal details. Another Cosmo editor swooped in before I could ask her for specific advice, but I would have.
White’s likable directness is one of her magazine’s defining characteristics. Cosmo has a cheerful, girlfriendy tone (“When Your Period Makes You Cra-a-zy”) and a much racier reputation than its newsstand competitors (“Eeek! You’ll Die When You Read What These ‘Normal’ Guys Wanted Once Their Pants Hit the Floor”). Its covers rarely fail to feature at least one bold, all-caps rendering of the word “sex.” The August issue, for instance, offered “52 Sex Tips” and “When Your Vagina Acts Weird After Sex.” A sampling of 2012 headlines includes “50 Sex Tips,” “50 Kinky Sex Moves,” “99 Sex Questions” and “His Best Sex Ever.”
The repetition can be a little numbing, but it may help explain how Cosmo, which is the best-selling monthly magazine in the United States, has morphed into such a global juggernaut. (“If all the Cosmo readers from around the world came together,” read a recent piece in Cosmo South Africa, “this group would form the 16th-largest country in the world.”) Through those 64 editions, the magazine now spreads wild sex stories to 100 million teens and young women (making it closer to the 12th-largest country, actually) in more than 100 nations — including quite a few where any discussion of sex is taboo. And plenty of others where reading a glossy magazine still carries cachet. (“Many girls consider a hard copy of Cosmo to be an important accessory,” says Maya Akisheva, the editor of Cosmo Kazakhstan.) As the brand proudly points out, in 2011 alone, these readers spent $1.4 billion on shoes, $400 million on cars, $2.5 billion on beauty products and $1.5 billion on fragrance and bought 24 million pairs of jeans.
by Edith Zimmerman, NY Times | Read more:
