Are British women ready for a new kind of magazine? That's the question publisher Hachette Filipacchi asked when researching the possibility of launching Psychologies in the UK. The magazine has been a huge success in Europe (coming a close second to Marie Claire as the top-selling magazine in France alone). It's flying off the shelves in Spain and Italy and, with launches planned for America, China and Russia, it was a natural step to launch in the UK. With Meg Ryan gracing the cover on this month's first issue, initial feedback already looks good. We spoke to Psychologies editor Maureen Rice and posed the big question.
After its huge success in Europe, what makes you think the UK is ready for Psychologies?
'Hachette Filipacchi has done a huge amount of research into this question, as obviously it's a completely different kind of launch in the women's market. Inspired by the phenomenal success in France, they just wondered if it would work here. After a lot of research they found out two things. Firstly there's a real hunger, a real appetite for something different in the women's market and, secondly, that there's a new moment in women's lives - they're calling the "third wave" of women. The first wave was identified in the '60s and '70s and represented a sort of social change where women challenged words like "wife" or "sexiest". The second was in the '80s and '90s when women went into the workforce and began to assume economic independence and girl power. Now we think we are in the third phase, refocusing back on balance and quality of life, relationships, understanding ourselves and personal development – that's really what Psychologies is about.
'Women can never be as "one focused" as men can; even women who love their jobs have always got more than one focus. Women are interested in personal projects and personal development, relationships especially. These things will always be really important to us and we can never put everything out of the way for the sake of work. There's an internal refocusing back on those things again.'
Who is the typical Psychologies reader?
'We've addressed it to 30-55. But really, truthfully, I think Psychologies is more of an attitude sell than an age sell. Already in the first few days since the launch we've had emails from men, older women and younger women! If you were interested in your personality or your behaviour or relationships, then I'd say it's for you, really. These things matter if you are 25 or 65!'
Are women ready to swap reading about skin stimulation for mental stimulation?
'I don't think you have to swap it – in France what they found was half their readership buy other magazines as well. Homes magazines, fashion magazines, whatever, and the other half were interested in typical women's magazines, but were really interested in psychology. I think we will probably see a very similar pattern here. I mean, I love a good fashion magazine, I like a bit of gossip, and if I want that, there are a lot of great magazines where I can find it. You can enjoy those things, but we like to see different parts of ourselves at different times. I think for a lot of people it won't be a swap, it will be an add-on. It's something that you can't get in other magazines…'
