“Magazines Are A Medium Of Illusion That Bedazzles Advertisers, Readers And Their Staff All At The Same Time”

Nicholas Coleridge, who is retiring as managing director of Condé Nast Britain after 26 years, has made it his duty to turn up to everything – awards, parties, launches – in pursuit of his titles’ interests, naturally. Here he reflects on a glamorous career in the Xanadu of glossy magazines.

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The first glossy magazine I ever opened was a copy of Harpers & Queen in May 1973. I was 16, ill in bed, and borrowed it from my mother, who was a subscriber. That first couple of hours with a glossy changed my life. I was mesmerised by the wit, by the blend of serious journalism and trivia, by the glamour of the fashion photography, sheen of the paper, gentle waft of fragrance from the advertisers’ scent strips, louche headlines, understated snobbery, zeitgeist-interrogating social commentary… all of these elements I found spellbinding and knew in a heartbeat I wanted to devote my career to glossy magazines.

Little did I realise how perfect my timing was going to be: that the years 1978 to 2017 were destined to be the golden years of print magazines and I was embarking upon a four-decade adventure of non-stop expansion, launches, parties and friendships. The years that ran from Mrs Thatcher arriving at No10 for the first time to the centenary of British Vogue would showcase the launches of hundreds of magazines and post record advertising paginations; the swaggering years of plenty, when editors were venerated and commanded transfer bonuses like Premier League footballers, publishing companies duelled for profit and prestige, and divas, not data, ruled the roost. We were entering what media historians will dub the Glossy Years.