Marie Claire is getting something of a makeover. On Wednesday, the fashion magazine published its first digital issue dedicated to beauty as part of a larger push to invest in beauty content. The inaugural beauty issue features singer Tinashe as its cover star and includes a series of original features on topics like CBD beauty, the current state of K-beauty, and the rise and fall of cosmetic filler.
The annual digital beauty issue will join Marie Claire’s existing roster of quarterly digital issues and biannual print issues and will kick off ongoing beauty franchises, including a first-person plastic surgery series and a dedicated fragrance franchise. Marie Claire beauty director Hannah Baxter will also pen a biweekly beauty newsletter, Face Forward, modeled after editor-in-chief Nikki Ogunnaike’s weekly shopping newsletter, Self Checkout.
“When I first spoke with [Ogunnaike], she let me know that 2025 would be the year for beauty with Maire Clare,” said Baxter. “At any publication, fashion is the bread and butter. But we all know what an appetite readers have for beauty content these days.”
Focusing on beauty also opens new avenues for Marie Claire to court advertisers. The debut digital beauty issue will feature a sole beauty partner, which Marie Claire declined to name ahead of publication. With the new beauty content, Elizabeth Bagdasarian, svp of U.S. sales for fashion, beauty and homes at Future, said the title’s strength lies in its ability to offer customizable partnership opportunities through initiatives like events and newsletters.
“This is giving advertisers the chance to tap into a growing space, especially with newsletters. Right now, advertisers are looking for those trusted voices, but also unique storytelling,” she said. “Beauty is a perfect way to attract users, so we’re leaning into newsletters and events and richer on-site experiences with bigger storytelling moments around beauty. We see our audience is hungry for that.”
According to Bagdasarian, Marie Claire reaches 6.9 million monthly users across all of its touchpoints. But audience size is not always the most important metric, she said. Ogunnaike’s Self Checkout newsletter counts more than 80,000 subscribers, with open rates exceeding 70%. The publication hopes for similar success with the new Face Forward newsletter.
“It’s less about the subscribers and more about, ‘What are those [editors] doing?’ The open rates and the click-throughs [are just as important],” she said.
Experimenting with new revenue streams, like newsletters, is key in an evolving media landscape. Founded in 1937, Marie Claire has gone through a series of major changes in its masthead and ownership in the years leading up to its new beauty initiatives. In 2021, Future Plc, the British publisher and owner of titles such as Wallpaper, acquired the American edition of Marie Claire from Hearst. Future reduced Marie Claire’s print cadence to two issues a year in 2022 and named Ogunnaike as the title’s editor-in-chief in 2023. Baxter joined the title in September 2024 following stints at The Zoe Report and Coveteur.
Marie Claire is far from the only legacy media publication to go through a series of upheavals in recent years. In August, Hearst announced former Highsnobiety editor-in-chief Willa Bennet as editor-in-chief of both Seventeen and Cosmopolitan. In September, former creative vp of Ssense Thom Bettridge was named editor-in-chief of i-D, which model Karlie Kloss and husband Josh Kushner purchased from Vice Media in 2023. In December, publishing giant Condé Nast laid off dozens of employees ranging from editorial staff to C-suite executives.
In a world in which new beauty and fashion influencers and tastemakers emerge daily on TikTok or Substack, those legacy media publications no longer control the conversation around trends and product recommendations. But Baxter believes there is still a role for legacy media to play in shaping the beauty conversation.
“The thing I love about Marie Claire is that our woman is so curious. She wants to know what’s happening — not just regurgitated trends, but what is at the intersection of culture and beauty,” she said. “We’re at a point where savvy readers, which the MC woman is, are recognizing that they still want that authority. Of course, there are people using [social media] platforms who have that expertise, but it’s hearkening back to a time when the editor was that point person.”
According to Baxter, content on topics like fragrance and beauty that speaks to a millennial audience entering their 40s has been particularly successful since she joined the publication. But Marie Claire’s beauty strategy is far from set in stone. Baxter said she is keen to hear from readers, potential contributors and partners on what they want to see from future coverage.
“I want those people who are readers and potential clients to know that they have access to me, and I care about what their feedback is,” she said. “My inbox is open. My ears are open.”
