Final edition of Cleo recreates first ever cover using model Jesinta Campbell
Cleo has recreated its first ever cover for its final issue, with Jesinta Campbell posing in a white dress imitating the iconic shot of model Louise Francett from the first ever edition in 1972.
March’s magazine is the final ever for the title after Bauer Media decided to stop printing it due to plummeting circulations earlier this year.
The cover was posted on Instagram today with the message: “44 years never looked so good. The farewell issue of CLEO hits stands on Monday. Thanks to@jesinta_campbell for recreating the very first Cleo cover so beautifully. Styled by@alissajaythomas – Photography @nsfotog #cleofinalissue“
The cover line on the final issue says “We farewell 44 years of sass, bachelors, sex and centrefolds”.
Campbell has graced the cover twice before, with the final edition set to hit shelves on Monday.
The final cover with Campbell
this must be some new use of the word “recreates” that i wasnt previously aware of.
how to recreate….
1 make sure the model is female – tick
2 make the cover colour the same – well, kinda tick
3 put the model in a white dress – tick
recreation complete!!! 🙁
An opportunity to present something amazing, incredible or impressive for the final edition of a publishing legend, is just turned into a bland nothing cover.
Sad to see the demise of a once leader.
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No wonder the publication is dead, they couldn’t even recreate their own cover, let alone the publication as a business..
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Agreed OS ^
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The fact the 1972 cover is infinitely more striking just about says it all, really. The final flogging of a long dead horse!
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And I bet they didn’t even have a centrefold in the final issue. The scrapping of the centrefold was the start of the decline and the reason why people stopped buying. Lisa Wilkinson, I hope you are feeling proud of what you did.
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What I find more interesting is that the first issue featured a short story from Norman Mailer! Can anyone imagine a bimbo magazine having something from one of the leading writers of the age now? Either bimbos have got dumber and/or publishers’ expectations have lowered in the interim.
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Seriously guys, do you have to be so critical?? How do you think it would feel to put together the last issue of your own, much-loved title? Give them a break.
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Colector’s Edition? I don’t think so!
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Agree Amie #7, saucers of milk all round…
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Recreated with a gaunt jessinta Campbell looking nothing like the original cover. Might have we’ll have been Shane Warne
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First, Dr Mumbo – can we get all misogynistic mentions of the word “bimbo” down please? Immature, unnecessary – and untrue. The women who read and make this magazine are smart, funny and curious. Unlike the commenter. Please take this comment down; it is degrading and offensive.
Second, I totally agree with Arnie – the team have gone out with a bang, grounding the final issue in the history of the magazine, using a cover model who could not be more relevant or embody the CLEO spirit more. Ticks all round. I reckon it’ll sell its socks off.
I’d love to see any of these commenters try to make a magazine. You know it’s more than bitching on publishing forums and trying out lipsticks, right?
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Looks great. Respect, it takes a lot to put together a mag. All the best to the team!
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Can we move on from this nostalgia nonsense?
Surely I can’t be the only one who thinks the women’s magazine market is saturated enough as it is? If anything, there needs to be LESS rather than more, so the fact that Cleo is no more is actually a good thing from a media planning perspective. Besides, besides being an Aussie title, what was its point of difference compared to Cosmo?
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Great looking cover. Sad to see another publication shutter shop.
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I agree that the use of the word bimbo is antiquated at best and the general sentiment within that comment is unfair to the readers. HOWEVER, you are an adult! Don’t like the comment then ignore it. I find the call to remove it as ‘offensive’ as the comments themselves.
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Ye, that’s a great “recreation”.
Except for the hair style, the hair colour, the dress, the pose and the 10kg Ms Campbell needs to put on to be in line with the far healthier looking 70s model.
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Gorgeous echo of the original Marilyn Monroe style cover. I can’t believe the misogyny here. I’ll remind bimbo commentator, the editor was Ita Buttrose who is no journalistic lightweight. Plus she would had the money to buy stories from well known writers. Germaine Greer also wrote for Cleo and that Norman Mailers’ best seller on Marilyn Monroe was published soon after in 1973. he was obsessed by her. I remember Cleo coming out and it was so exciting.The Women’s Weekly with endless covers of royalty , recipes and home hints was not for us. I like many of my generation got our sex education instruction manual from Cleo- it was not taught in school. Cleo was a trailblazer. Have some grace- they are bowing out in style. Like Marilyn, blow them a kiss.
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Obviously the use of the term ‘bimbo” has riled some feathers but I honestly didn’t intend it to be offensive but I notice that no one has really answered the question I posed which is why the first issue included some literary fiction and this tradition didn’t continue. I suspect “night woman” may have hit on the real reason which is that Ita Buttrose had a real journalism background – and perhaps greater respect for her readers – rather than her successor editors who seemed to be girls from wealthy families who came straight into young women’s magazines without any conventional journalistic training.
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People often don’t ‘intend’ to be offensive, but certain terms just are, and they’re not helpful in a discussion like this. They come across simply as trolling.
I believe someone did answer your question about Norman Mailer, in that he had a best-seller about Marilyn Monroe coming out just a few months later, so it was natural to include him.
Magazines have changed since that time. Very few would include extracts by writers of that stature, apart from the likes of Vanity Fair or the New Yorker. When competing with the internet, it’s hard to justify that longer, more cerebral reads.
That could be part of the downfall of magazines in general – maybe, maybe not.
I’m not sure where you get your information about “girls from wealthy families” coming straight into young women’s magazines. In my fairly substantial experience of working on women’s mags, nearly all the staff come from communications degrees at university, working their way up from positions such as editorial coordinator or junior assistant.
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Sad that they did not choose to re-use the still-beautiful original First Edition cover-girl model on the front of the last edition, as well. It would have been testimony to the true “value” of CLEO. Her name was NOT Louise Francett, it was Georgia …. ! and her hair-dresser on that shoot was Xenon!
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We have an original copy of the first edition from 1972 in great condition, where would we go to sell it please?
Thanks
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