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In 1937, Jean Prouvost, French publishing mogul was approached by one of his woman columnists, Marcelle Auclair, who felt the women of France were ready for their own weekly magazine. Together they launched Marie-Claire, a magazine that combined American style features with French fashion sense. It became a sensation, selling close to one million issues a week. (Publishing lore has it that the police were brought in ever Wednesday in Paris when Marie Claire came out to ensure order in the streets among the women.) According to her autobiography, Marcelle Auclair penned most of the columns in the first 12 issues. This magazine is widely acknowledged as having established the modern women's magazine format with fashion, gossip, health features, etc. Not surprisingly, since Marcelle Auclair was a woman before her time who studied yoga and meditation. If you can read French might check out her many New Age style advice books, still available in print, as well as her really heavy duty biographies, most notably of St. Theresa of Avila. She loved fashion and beauty, but was an intellectual, married to an intellectual, Jean Prevost, who edited St. Exupery's books. I found a stack of pre-war Marie Claire's and scanned them. Here are a few covers. Marie Claire is still around and unlike pre WWI covers, these are not necessarily in the public domain. I post them only for educational value.
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