1970: Harpers Bazaar, which had launched in the UK in 1929 (Hearst had owned it in the US since 1912) as a fashion magazine that also showcased quality photography and writing, has lost direction. It merges with Queen, a society magazine for the sort of minor aristos who'd been dabbling in the Swinging London scene. Willie Landels is appointed editor.
1980: Under the magazine's advertising manager, Terry Mansfield (pictured), ad revenues are booming. The good times continue when the Thatcher decade boosts the ranks of its core Sloane Ranger audience.
1991: But by the end of the decade, the atmosphere of the world inhabited by the title is not so much rarefied as stuffy. Landels had retired in 1989 and in 1991 he is followed by Betty Kenward, who'd written the magazine's most famous column, Jennifer's Diary (an insider's view of the social calendar), since 1959, first in Queen, then in the merged title.
2004: The magazine's publisher, Tess Macleod Smith, and editor, Lucy Yeomans, who'd both joined in 2000, begin to revitalise the title, running interviews with rock stars in an attempt to bring the average age of its readership below 40 (from 46) and make it more congenial to professional women. But they are denied permission to drop Queen from the masthead by the intervention of The National Magazine Company's chief executive, Duncan Edwards.
2005: Having reduced the average age of its audience to 41, the magazine's circulation climbs to 100,102 (January to June, 2005). Now the number-three global fashion title, the UK edition drops Queen from the masthead.
Fast forward ...
2010: The Queen title, which has been acquired by a consortium including Prince Edward, Andrew Lloyd Weber and Elton John, and relaunched as a society title aimed at a privileged, often titled, elite, has rather improbably become the UK's fastest-growing glossy. Meanwhile, Harpers, which has now reduced the average age of its audience to 40, is celebrity-obsessed and is struggling to attract upmarket advertisers.
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