Will the choice of cover subjects on fashion magazines matter as much in the next decade? Probably not, not with every other medium, new and yet-to-be-invented, competing to give readers fresh images of the stars, and with all magazines struggling to survive the death of their business model. But in a decade that arguably saw the peak of their power (at least if you measure by circulation), the covers of Vogue, Elle, InStyle, Marie Claire, Harper's Bazaar, Lucky, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, and, until 2007, Jane were benchmarks of what was considered beautiful, relatable, and most of all, saleable. With the exception of top 15 runners-up Gisele Bundchen and Kate Moss, models were replaced by actresses. The key to winning this particular contest: longevity and versatility, with long-running romantic woes providing a possible alternative. Unless, of course, you're Gwyneth Paltrow or Nicole Kidman. Then your total is skewed by four to five Vogue covers.


15. Keira Knightley (12) (tied with Britney Spears)
Sexyface and exquisite bone-structure make a potent combination. But with the exception of Knightley's three Vogue covers in four years, women's magazines seemed to be constantly trying to find the cozier side of Knightley's clavicles.


14. Britney Spears (12) (tied with Keira Knightley)
Spears wasn't always a women's magazine mainstay, and even less so a fashion one, but the end of the decade saw her graduating from Rolling Stone peek-a-boo to relatable features about being a mom, including two covers of her pregnant. That, plus standing up her interviewer.


13. Sandra Bullock (13) (tied with Scarlett Johansson)
The endlessly likable Bullock isn't flashy. She transitioned better from a tomboy rep to a ballgown than to Cosmo's enforced sultriness. This was another turtle-and-hare-style, consistent player.


12. Scarlett Johansson (13) (tied with Sandra Bullock)
Although her men's magazine covers were unfailingly titillating, women's magazines vacillated between presenting Scarlett Johansson as the girl next door or showing off her curves.


11. Halle Berry (14)
Let us consider it some type of progress that the era of "Halle Berry, jungle girl," has apparently come to an end with the actress growing older. (Or maybe editors getting a clue?) That said, who knew it was possible to find an unflattering photo of her? Harper's Bazaar did.


10. Jennifer Lopez (15) (tied with Cameron Diaz and Gwyneth Paltrow)
Reportedly deemed too "trashy" for Vogue at the turn of the century, Lopez finally got her shot in 2005, but had to settle for spinoffs Vogue Living and Fashion Rocks for the rest of the decade. Harper's Bazaar and InStyle were only too happy to have their chance, putting Lopez on the cover three times each this past decade.


9. Cameron Diaz (15) (tied with Jennifer Lopez and Gwyneth Paltrow)
Diaz's ability to comfortably cover both W and Cosmopolitan three times each shows that playing both to the mass crowd and the fashion elite equals, well, lots of play.


8. Gwyneth Paltrow (15) (tied with Jennifer Lopez and Cameron Diaz)
Coronated by Anna Wintour and a fashion darling from the start, Paltrow was rarely found on the cover of the one of the service-y women's magazines, where the emphasis is on down-to-earth relatability. That unaddressed yearning, we can posit, is what brought us Goop.


7. Sarah Jessica Parker (18)
SJP is the classic example of an actress that women like but that will never be found on the cover of a men's magazine, unlike almost every other woman on this list.


6. Jessica Simpson (19) (tied with Renee Zellweger)
Jessica Simpson's prominence here can apparently be attributed to her inability to turn down an offer to be on a cover. Her range would be the widest — Elle several times, Jane, Lucky — except that sadly, Vogue has never come a-calling. And probably never will.


5. Renee Zellweger (19) (tied with Jessica Simpson)
A favorite of InStyle (four times), Vogue, W, and Harper's Bazaar (three times each), the star of the two Bridget Jones movies remained a fashionable choice despite her films' largely mass appeal.


4. Jennifer Aniston (22) (tied with Nicole Kidman)
It may seem like Jennifer Aniston has been on every magazine printed this decade, but when you subtract out the tabloids close-reading her every movement, it's impressive yet not game-changing. Known to be a reliable seller in magazine circles (if not necessarily at the box office), the key for Aniston was ponying up quotables about her love life. (The out-of-context "What Angelina Did Was Very Uncool" ending up on the cover of Vogue was a low point for everyone involved.)


3. Nicole Kidman (22) (tied with Jennifer Aniston)
Nicole Kidman never really went away, at least in the ladymag world. Her porcelain features may have lost some of their mobility, but there she was year after year, setting a record for the decade with five Vogue covers, yet pouring her heart out to Marie Claire about Keith Urban's alcoholism.


2. Angelina Jolie (24)
The evolution of Angelina Jolie's magazine covers neatly mirrors her own transformation: from revelations about blood and bisexuality to imperious queen of Hollywood. The Internet is rife with catfight-esque comparisons between Aniston and Jolie covers, and maybe Vogue was being impish photographing both of them in red dresses on the beach. In any case, in our minds, nothing has quite equaled the Vogue cover above.


1.Drew Barrymore (26)
The surprise queen of the decade has survived a lot more than magazine editors' fickleness. Having spent her entire life in the public eye and overcome early addiction, she emerged as both a likable actress and, increasingly, a Hollywood power to be reckoned with. Quirky, girlish appeal as well as the ability to pull off couture equals ladymag gold.

So does she feel her generation of women was lied to? "Yeah. I based my life on the philosophy that I was going to do it all. I gave everything to work and assumed that I would be able to have kids and still do it all."

The sassy youthful readers Jane meant to address are still out there. Some have gravitated to blogs like Feministing and Jezebel...

I am dorky enough to have gone to one of the "dinners with Jane!" things at their offices just when Brandon [Holley] took over.

When I got the invite, I assumed we'd be going out to dinner. Instead I arrived at their messy office and was offered shitty pizza and my choice of canned soda. There were as many Jane staffers as there were dinner attendees, and they hovered around us not eating and looking freaked out. Then they asked us for story ideas for about an hour. Brandon came in trying to look in touch and cool but she looked old-ish and uncool.

All the readers who turned up were big dorks and blog-obsessed. I think this was the first of these "dinners" - could this have been where things went wrong? It seemed to me they got that we all love celebrity gossip but what they didn't get was that no one wants to read month old celebrity gossip. The funniest thing was about a week later I got an email from a Jane staffer asking me for info on the location of some all boys ranch college thing-y that another girl at the dinner had mentioned. She thought I had suggested a story about it, and was asking me further details about its location. A Google search of about three words would have turned up the same info. Excellent reporting skills!

Heh, "some."

I feel like I abandoned that baby and it went off and got on drugs or something.

Jane Pratt On The End Of Jane [Ad Age]

After considerable thought, we have decided to cease publication of Jane, effective with the August 2007 issue. The website, janemag.com, will also be shut down. This difficult business decision was made despite the efforts and hard work of Brandon Holley, Carlos LaMadrid, and Jane's editorial and advertising staffs. The following press announcement was just released. Tom Wallace and I, and all of us at CNP, are grateful to everyone who contributed to Jane over the past few years.

Conde Nast Says Goodbye To 'Jane' Magazine [Crain's New York]

Sarah had some chips and a giant margarita at the cheesy Mexican place at which we met (her choice, but she was apologetic!) which was enough to give her some calories, but not enough to make her puke. Anyway again! Abstaining from FOOD isn't this girl's disorder! Sex is, or rather, how she still hasn't had it. Sarah is not only pretty - violent acne kept her away from men for her first 22 years, but her skin is utterly flawless now, little whore! — she's funny. Funny enough that she does stand-up comedy, which is how this whole Jane thing originated, as a stand-up routine that sort of, needless to say, spiraled out of control.

Because I was looking for a long-term relationship with Sarah and not a one-night stand (translation: I = a pussy) I did not ask certain things of Sarah that were on my mind, like where she'd been sexually on the 1st-to home-base scale, or if she'd allow us to have her hymen tested [Good god. -Ed.], or if she was one of those virgins who was paranoid enough to have been tested for HIV the first time she felt a penis. She offered that she enjoys porn, but I didn't watch any with her.

At this point, I must say, I was pretty drunk, but I do remember that over the course of the evening Sarah kept reminding me of all the facts one could glean about oneself if one were so resourceful as to type a name into Google. This is not the fault of either of us: I have an almost preposterously Google-able name. If I dated curious, ambitious, thin types like Sarah DiMuro, instead of the fleshy, slacker-drunks I so clearly prefer, I might be forced to have actual conversations with people, about things I have written, which would be tolerable if my drunk mind had any concept what its sober counterpart was up to during the day. (I wrote a story about Dave Chappelle? Really? I knew I liked that guy..)

About then I probably forgot what I was doing there. I knew we were not there to have sex, since, well, she's a virgin and females aren't my type anyway. I remembered she lives in a women's residence from which men who are not family members are totally banned. "I call it the convent," she said. "I know people whose boyfriends have worn wigs, who've climbed in through fire escapes..." It was entertaining, stories of the convent, and her neighbor the snitch, and yet: why does she still live there? She lives there, she said, because it is easy, and in the West Village, and they prepare two meals a day for all residents, which prompted my mind to again wander toward the less-fascinating mystery of why Sarah DiMuro was so thin.

About three quarters of the way through the conversation I received a text message from a newly-unemployed guy I sleep with sometimes and found myself telling Sarah about it.

Her: "Do you always know at first when you're going to, you know, like someone?"

Me: "Well I knew pretty instantly we were probably going to have sex at some point."

Her: "See, I don't always know right at first if I'm going to.."

Me: "Not have sex with them! Haha."

Her: "For awhile I was really into Asian guys. I mean, that was, like, my thing. I don't know why."

I babbled about something. It's not a fun thing to visualize a 30-year-old virgin messing around with someone, even if she's a perfectly able messer-arounder, but nevertheless I visualized her with Harold from Harold and Kumar, since I figured that was probably who she was talking about, and it made sense, having been a big nerd all her life; maybe she fantasized about a Korean lab partner back in high school; huh. Babble babble babble I went, explaining how she should explore her thing, and that even I didn't like to have sex RIGHT away, that I thought it was better, as a rule, to get in at least one good non-physcial drinking session to make sure that you were actually compatible with someone's personality...

Her: "See, I find that usually when I get really physical right away, it's because I've been drinking. So I try not to drink so much."

At which point I was stumped. I mean, what do you say? If I'd had a non-drunk control group from which I was working in the years I was out trying to lose my virginity, I'd probably still be a virgin myself. On the other hand, she's dating someone steadily now (whom she calls "Cute Blond"), and he probably doesn't want to do it yet. He wants everything to be comfortable, I'd assume; except that too comfortable isn't going to get anyone in the mood either, especially without alcohol. Sigh. Also: Cute Blond isn't Asian. So she was not only trying to lose it sober, she was trying to go off-type. Tough.

"I just need to take time off from the question," she concluded. Which was true: if a year's worth of pressure hadn't gotten her laid, maybe pressure wasn't, for once, the answer. She had signed up to do the blog — for no money, in fact! Though they have offered to pay $12 a post — as a sort of career move, a builder of buzz for Brand Sarah Dimuro, and it had wound up brushing up against her identity to a degree that was uncomfortable, even to a pretty conscientious careerist. I wanted to tell her to move out of this town, and take a job waiting tables somewhere, to smoke a lot of pot. She had gone about her twenties like the high school dork that she was, the excruciatingly-shy introvert who confronts her deepest fears by performing stand-up in front of heckling strangers. It was pretty awesome of her. But sex is different. It's like, life, or something.

"My goal is, at some point, to host a show," she told me. I nodded because I believe she could be really great at that, though I'd want her to stop being a virgin first, and maybe put on some weight.

She continued: "I just know I'd be good at it. What's your big goal, with all of this? Jezebel? Seriously. I know you have goals."

"Oh God," I said.

"I don't think I look beyond the next post."

[OK ANNA, ONTO THE NEXT POST!!]

• Jane Magazine's Brandon Holley got hitched. Like two weeks ago! [Gawker]
  
• Anna Wintour isn't the only one with a grudge against pachyderms: EBay has got it in for them too. [CNN]
  
• Angelina Jolie says she's going on hiatus. Wee! This might mean that more biological "blobs" are on the way! [USAToday]
  
• Veronica Mars dies a quiet death tonight. [NeptuneSite]
  
• The new, no-period birth control pill gets FDA approval; Tambrands weeps. [WSJ]

Haha, kidding! Of course we need popstars to tell us what to buy. But that's why God created the Olsen Twins! After the jump, we assess the metamorphosis that has occured within Avril since being spawned by the Matrix in 2003 of Seventeen, Jane, and Lucky magazines... and, oh yes, her new album, which comes out this week.

Since Avril started giving her first "not a tomboy anymore" interviews in early 2004, she has transported her skateboard in a limo, dyed her hair white with a pink streak a la Rachel McAdams, made bank writing the song "Breakaway" for Kelly Clarkson and gotten married in a Vera Wang dress outside Santa Barbara. Is she still punk? (And by "punk", we mean does she still shop at Hot Topic?) Was she ever really one of us? Who is she?

Evidence in the April issue of Seventeen was heartening. Avril extolls the virtue of Bath & Body Works' berry body sprays and $15 Target flats, and poses in Doc Martens, those American Apparel socks made famous by classy lady Lauren Phoenix, Forever 21 boots and a super cute Charlotte Russe jumper. So far, so within our budget constraints!!

But then she shows up in Jane, wearing the same Tonya Harding-esque scowl/severe eyeliner but a much pricer wardrobe: $160 Diesel sweater, an $895 Mia and Kompany skull necklace and a $235 Max and Co jacket.

Then this month the skateboarding star poses for the most honest (about its intentions) women's magazine in the world, Lucky, in a collection of items apparently "worth" $1500. Not punk!

So what about the "music"??? Devoted Avril fans can delight: nothing whatsoever has happened to Avril Lavigne's signature punk sound: we downloaded four whole Avril songs with a little help from our pink-hued sisters at Idolator, and despite her protestations to the contrary in USA Today, she sounds exactly the same! (Except that there may be more curse words, even as she also overuses the word "damn", which we thought had been rendered obsolete by the word "fucking" in 1997.)

The album drops April 17, folks! Don't forget to not download it!

Avril's Best Damn Thing [USA Today]

Win Avril's Cover Look [Lucky]
The New Avril Lavigne Album Is Not That Complicated [Idolator]
Avril Is Upset With Songwriting Partner [StarPulse]

But bloggers, or, rather, a blogger, isn't having any of it. In her "Dear Brandon" response to Holley's April letter, the women's magazine blogger at Glossed Over takes the Jane editor to task for, among other things, putting Avril Lavigne on the cover, "pandering career advice" and Holley's inclusion of a poll asking L.A. women which celebrities their dogs most closely resemble personality-wise, saying: "...naturally, we thought Jane would seek out opinions on subjects that, oh, actually matter. ...[But the poll] is a terrible trifle to trot out as an example of the 'culture of women' the magazine claims to promote," writes Glossed Over. "Apparently modern women are defined not by their own personalities, but by the traits they conjure for their dogs."

We think that's taking it a little far but we also imagine that somewhere, Jane Pratt is grinning just a little bit right now. Although from what we hear, it's more likely that she's thinking about how she fucked Drew Barrymore.

Fresh Jane [WWD]
Dear Brandon: A Response To Jane's Editor [GlossedOver]
Jane Pratt Isn't The Type To Go Around Telling People She Fucked Drew Barrymore [Gawker]

Jane Magazine's website has a mildly-interesting but potentially-fun feature called "Rate My Outfit", in which regular women are asked to submit photos of themselves for visitors to vote on.

Thing is, every time we see this feature, it's obvious the website's editors are so desperate for content that they've taken to posting pictures of young women (probably interns) working in their own fashion and accessories closets. Are we supposed to believe that "Merce" or "Emily" from NY have 200-square-feet of their tiny apartments devoted to shelves of handbags plus random mannequins and forms and clothing trunks? Silly fashion magazine editors. They're just, so... Jane.

Dress & Primp [JaneMagazine]

It's tough running a magazine, you know, and it appears the strain of it all is getting to Jane Magazine's Brandon Holley.

The poor dear is so out of ideas for her baby, that she's resorted to asking the readers for suggestions, on her weekly Thursday pitch fest.

So far the ideas are pouring in, running the full fascinating gamut from A to B. Oooh, how about some celebrity sex? That's not been done before! Hey! What about personal finance? How come no-one ever covers that? Oh, and there's one request for normal looking models in the fashion spreads. Heh. Good luck with that one, happy reader.

Brandon, sweetie, there's a couple of very good reason why you never ask the readers what they want.

1. They're all fat ugly badly-dressed morons. Remember?

   And

2. If you don't tell them what they want, you'll never shift all that useless fashion and beauty product that your advertizers want you to ram down your readers' passive little throats.

Back to the drawing board for you, young lady!

[Jane Mag's Thursday pitchfest] Jane Magazine

God Almighty, will it ever end?

Ten billion years into her mind-numblingly boring attempt to lose her virginity, and Sarah diMuro over on Jane Magazine has still had not so much as a finger up her hoohaa. It's got so bad that editor Brandon Holley is reduced to getting her staff to phone Sarah and harangue her into a fuck.

"I got a call from my confidante and JANE web editor, Melinda, schooling me on my questionable dating habits. In short she said "You have to give people more of a chance and stop categorizing the date before the date even starts."

She also said, and this is key, "Don't even think about passing ANY judgements on the date or the guy until the meeting has ended and you have had time to think about it." She really put me in my place. Mind you, I kind of wanted to cry, because what she was saying is so, well, true."

When the world is dead, only the cockroaches will remain. And Sarah. Still intact.

Poor Brandon Holley. Having given astoundingly unfunny 'comic' Sarah DiMuro a whole three months in which to lose her virginity and win a book deal after blogging her efforts, the Jane Magazine editor finds herself saddled with someone who couldn't apparently lose her virginity if she laid naked on the cobbles of the Meatpacking district on a Friday night. Worse still, DiMuro is strictly of the 'I had a grilled cheese sandwhich for lunch and gee I hate my mom' species of blogger. Witness:

"Have you ever been so ashamed of yourself you just wanted to die? Well, here is a doozy that'll make you hate me. I went out with a friend of mine last Thursday and while I was sitting at the bar this cute guy started talking to me. He was funny, great smile and we joked around for a bit. Then, THEN I got up to go to the bathroom and discovered he was about 3 inches shorter than me. I couldn't help it; I just lost interest. I know, I know: 'My name is Sarah DiMuro and I've entered Phase: Vain in my dating arc.'"

And so, a month after the deadline that would have provided the only dramatic hook to her now surely never-to-be book deal, Sarah sits there amongst the rolling cyber tumbleweeds, her private parts determinedly un-penetrated, fornlornly blogging into the void.

Brandon, just give the girl a super-absorbent tampon and let nature take its course. For all our sakes.

We've already met Simon Way who is just completely useless really, and now meet Scott Keneally who likes to share the fact that he wets the bed and cries a lot, usually in the pages of Jane Magazine. And he doesn't just share, he shares in a whimsical fashion.

Look at him. Doesn't he scream whimsy? We picture him spending Sunday mornings on a rooftop in Williamsburg, reading Rimbaud in the original French before heading off to a poetry slam on the Lower East Side with his best friend Dave Eggers, before heading home to bash out 1,000 words on how crap he is for Jane, which will one day become the book about how he has issues with his Dad.

Witness:

"I watch Hilary Swank movies over and over. My sniffles, shrieks and snot bubbles are exercises in empathy. So if the day ever comes when I need to euthanize a paraplegic friend, or if my sister ever straps one on, poses as a guy and is shot seven time, I will have a precedent for those emotions."

So you cry. What do you want, a fucking medal?

And quite apart from the fact that this is the kind of twaddle you'd find on a teenage myspace blog, Scott, that whole "women want a man who's not afraid to cry" is something we say when we're fourteen and think we want a man with the soul of a poet. Once we grow up, we realize what we want is a man with a bulging wallet, who could light a fire and slaughter a wild boar with his bare hands for food if we're stranded on a desert island and doesn't go around blubbing his fucking head off at Hilary fucking Swank movies.

We hate to tell you this, Scott, but when you cry, we secretly think you're pathetic.

It won't get you laid. Ok?

And speaking of Jane, new editor Brandon Holley startlingly admits to her fetish in this month's readers letter:

"Speaking of piss, have you ever gone into a public bathroom barefoot? Because that I find incredibly fascinating. In fact, email me at janemag.com if you want to get dinner sometime and tell me about it."

After dinner, Brandon will order you to remove your shoes and wade in her fresh urine. Then she will lick in between your toes. Then she'll send you home with a free facepack.

Do you have fabulous hair?

Yes?

Oh Good! Because:

"JANE and Redken want to find out what you do to make your hair look great at a special JANE reader dinner in June. If you have an interest in beauty, especially hair care and coloring, fill out this form for a chance to have dinner at the JANE offices. You'll get to meet with JANE beauty editors and Redken representatives, plus take home some fun beauty products."

Isn't that nice? Dinner and freebies? Now that's what I call reader friendly! And I'm sure it's got nothing whatever to do with a marketing ploy, even if the url does read "http://www.demographix.com/surveys/KRMW-BHLT/9MJX228F". It's all about you.

Unless you have shit hair.