The inside: advertisements for H&M accessories costing ten euros and cashmere sweaters costing 450 euros. Interviews with Countess Eloise of Orange and with grandparents that went viral on TikTok. Glamorous photos of branded jackets and large portraits of children with a rare brain disorder.
The outside: Linda de Mol, smiling broadly into the camera. Magazine LINDA. (circulation: 157,215) has been around for two decades. With her stories, LINDA wants. continues to make the world of its readers bigger, writes De Mol in the anniversary issue, “but the distance between them becomes smaller.”
This contrast between far and near is characteristic of women’s magazines, says gender history teacher Marloes Hülsken (Radbout University), who specialized in historical women’s magazines from the twentieth century, but also follows today’s magazines with great interest. There has been a tension in women’s magazines since the nineteenth century, says Hülsken. “They are focused on private life, but also on the outside world. They can be role-affirming, but also role-breaking. They appeal to collective womanhood, but also appeal to the development of yourself as an individual. They offer a form of realism and recognition, and at the same time a kind of fantasy of what your ideal world could look like.”
LINDA., which is still doing well in the magazine world which has shrunk by a quarter since 2015, performs a successful balancing act between these contradictions – and that in the form of a beautifully designed glossy, says Hülsken. “The magazine is exciting enough to serve as an ‘escape’, and at the same time realistic enough not to think: oh, this is not about me.”
In 2022, Linda de Mol was considering quitting her job completely
Linda de Mol’s role was also distinctive about the magazine. A woman who was the figurehead of a women’s magazine in this way, with covers that frequently featured De Mol, was new in the Netherlands in 2003. On TV she had already managed to be both popular and glamorous. “Linda de Mol has always had a very strong image the girl next door. Although of course she isn’t that at all. She is a multi-millionaire who is mega-successful,” says Hülsken. “But she has something that people find recognizable.”
De Mol cleverly responds to this by highlighting topics that appear to readers as very ‘normal’ and recognizable, and therefore have a connecting effect. “About how difficult it can be to lose five kilos, for example,” says Hülsken. “Or about how painful it is when your relationship ends.”
The Voice of Holland
When revelations about abuses at The Voice of Holland in early 2022 put a bomb under De Mol’s own relationship with Jeroen Rietbergen, who was accused of sexual misconduct, it was a difficult time for LINDA, editor-in-chief Karin Swerink said last Wednesday in the radio program Spraakmakers (KRO-NCRV). Presenter Ghislaine Plag asked her whether the incident had affected the sales figures. “Partially,” replied Swerink, who emphasized that during that period corona was rampant and people had less to spend due to rising energy prices.
The obviousness of De Mol on the cover disappeared. She even considered quitting her work altogether, she confided to her readers in October 2022. However, she ultimately chose not to do so and is now visibly present again at the magazine that bears her name, which should be “for all women.” ”, she writes in the anniversary issue, regardless of age, color and political interest.
Also read: Hello John de Mol. You could have done this
Editor-in-chief Swerink believes that LINDA. succeeds well in appealing to all those target groups. “That lies in our portrait gallery, but also in the celebrities, the fashion, the attention for minorities. We have made articles about Iranian women in the Netherlands, about mothers who breastfeed for a long time, about femicide. But we also recently had a very nice article about women who make complicated lunch boxes for their children. So that inclusivity and diversity is certainly there.”
Hülsken doubts whether all women are actually LINDA’s target group. belong. For example, in 2022 the magazine was criticized for a breast special, in which ten well-known women were on the cover with bare torsos. The chosen celebrities gave a very perfect picture, the critics thought. There were no sagging breasts or amputated breasts.
In addition, there are many advertisements in the magazine for expensive articles, which are not accessible to most readers, Hülsken sees. But according to Swerink, LINDA offers. just something for every budget. “We are looking at that very carefully. Occasionally there may be something very expensive, as long as it contains a washing-up brush for one euro.”