Murdoch Unveils American Elle

Publishing magnate Rupert Murdoch ventures onto the whirling sea of fashion with the debut today of American Elle, a new fashion and style magazine based on the successful French version.

The monthly magazine, which will be unveiled at newsstands in 50 top markets across the country at a cost of $2.50, is American by production but international in scope.

The reason for the international flair, Elle Publisher Marybeth Russell said, is something she calls “the Europeanization of America.”

“People’s sensibilities have been touched by a lot of different things,” she said. “Travel to Europe is a key one . . . and it’s because of that that peoples’ sights go beyond our shores in terms of cuisine, life style, fashion, travel.”

“Even Sara Lee is doing croissants these days,” she said. “From a marketing standpoint, it’s the right time and the right place for Elle in the U.S. There’s no question it will be a commercial success.”

Two test-market issues and a seductive $1-million print advertising campaign were thrown in to ensure her prophecy.

One ad, shown in Murdoch magazines such as New York and New Woman and splashed across bus and train depots, boasts: “No one is as hot as Elle.” A model’s shapely backside decked in a teasingly thigh-high swimsuit sells the sizzle. Other ads substitute hot with adjectives like mad, bold and haute.

The magazine’s unconventional attitude, the theme of the mad ad, comes through with the picture of a bespectacled model standing on her head.

“We’ve had a tremendous response,” said Russell, 39, a veteran of Glamour, Women’s Wear Daily and W magazine--and the first female publisher of a major fashion magazine.

Some 20,000 yearly subscriptions at $17.98, which she admits is “a high price for a new magazine,” came in from the last test issue alone, and response cards from complimentary issues, sent out several weeks ago, have been flooding the magazine’s Fifth Avenue offices.

What is Elle? Perhaps, what it is not is more important.

It is not, said Russell, another “how to” or women’s self-help magazine. It will not offer step-by-step advice for those unable to put an outfit together. There will be no embarrassing photographs of women on the street under the banner of “dos” and “don’ts” dressing tips.

“The idea is that she (the Elle reader) will do her own selecting, editing and adapting . . . and come out with her own very distinctive style,” the publisher said.

The she to whom Russell refers is expected to be a reader in her early 30s, well educated, well traveled, career oriented, urban and affluent by virtue of her own income.

“Her interests are on the cutting edge, and that’s whether it’s music, personalities, the whole arts arena, fashion,” Russell said, and are exactly the type of stories offered inside Elle.

Though edited in the United States and geared toward the American market, the magazine’s flavor comes from the 40-year heritage of French Elle.

“It is not a copy but a cousin” to the avant-garde magazine, which was the first to glorify “street fashion” or what people--not designers--do with clothing, Russell said.

The magazine is being jointly published by Murdoch and Edi Sept, which publishes French Elle.

Murdoch’s media holdings include a half-interest in the 20th Century Fox movie company and newspapers in the United States, Britain and Australia, and he is in the process of acquiring six Metromedia television stations.

Edi Sept is a subsidiary of Hachette, Europe’s largest magazine publisher.

“The partnership is really a very strong one,” Russell said, one that fuses Edi Sept’s publishing success with Murdoch’s money and will result in a quality fashion magazine. “We like to think we have the best of both worlds,” she said.