Frequency weekly Unpaid circulation 5,000,000 (est.) | Founder Audrey Slaughter | |
Categories Teen and young women's magazine |
Petticoat was a British weekly magazine for young women which was published from 1966 until 1975, at the height of the Swinging Sixties, in London by Fleetway/IPC, printed in 40 page issues by Eric Bemrose in Long Lane, Liverpool.
Contents
Content
Launched by Honey magazine founder Audrey Slaughter and subtitled 'For the young and fancy free' on its original masthead, Petticoat responded to the emergence of a more liberal teenager and young woman. From 9-Sep-1967, it absorbed Trend, renaming itself Petticoat/Trend until it dropped the latter name about a year later. By this time, its slogan had changed to 'The New Young Woman’.
The magazine offered fiction, popular culture, fashion news featuring labels like Biba, Mary Quant, Foale & TuffinandBus Stop, and advice on love, sex, healthy eating, hair and make-up maintenance, with plenty of full-colour photographs and Pop style monochrome line illustrations and typography. Petticoat promoted the Mod fashion of 'Swinging London'.
Controversy
From the early seventies Petticoat's 'agony aunt' was Claire Rayner whose advice on masturbation and promiscuity caused controversy, and who responded;
Significant contributors
Other Petticoat contributors included Annie Nightingale, Maggie Goodman, Lynne Franks (supposedly the model for Edina, played by Jennifer Saunders, in the TV series Absolutely Fabulous), Jane Ennis, Chris Ward (later editor of the Daily Express), Eve Pollard (who later edited the Sunday Mirror and the Sunday Express before launching Aura) and Janet Street-Porter who was appointed editor in 1967 and who had close links to the designer Zandra Rhodes amongst others.
Demise
With the format of a cheaper supermarket tabloid its lifespan mirrored that of more stylish names of the time including Biba and Nova magazines which also folded in 1975. Petticoat was absorbed by Hi (published by City magazines) 17-May-1975 but that also discontinued with its last issue of 3-Jul-1976, as television continued making inroads into the magazine market.