The Press: Kid Sister

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That the Average American Woman now gets many if not most of her primping ideas from the movies—instead of from Paris or New York—is the not unreasonable hunch on which Sophisticate Conde Nast this week launched Glamour, a 15¢ monthly devoted to knowing chatter about Hollywood frocks, hairdos, makeup, snoods,* etc. Glamour promises to be a lively kid sister to Publisher Nast's big, elegant, expensive (35¢ a copy) Vogue, which, with Publisher Hearst's Harper's Bazaar, spells out chic & charm for American women whose spending money is by no means average. Print order for the first (April) number of Glamour was 200,000, only a few thousand behind Vogue.

Glamour's, principal job will be to survey the new films each month in search of fashions and frills. Glamour portents for this month: Bette Davis' enameled jewels and lace mitts in Juarez, Claudette Colbert's can-can ruffles in Zaza, favorite up-or-down hairdos of Madeleine Carroll. Merle Oberon, Hedy Lamarr et al. But it will offer the subway-riding and dish-washing A. A. W. nothing she cannot pay for. In a section of "Dos" and "Don'ts" middle-income readers are advised to go in for "romantic" cotton frocks like Loretta Young's, but to stop thinking about the lame and fur tunic that Ellen Drew is wearing. Of the 132 slick-coated pages of the first issue, half are given over to advertisements including Macy's $11 dresses and Priscilla Parker's 39¢ lipsticks. This will not do Street & Smith's Mademoiselle, which started the cheap chic publishing vogue, any good.

Editor of Glamour is slim, brown-eyed Fashion Expert Alice Thompson, whose husband is home relief administrator of Rockland County, N. Y. Editor Thompson has been commuting furiously between the Conde Nast Offices in Manhattan, her home in suburban Mount Vernon, and Hollywood, where she held her breath long enough on a recent trip to be glamourized by Photographer George Hurrell (see cut). When her seven-year-old daughter saw the picture she remarked: "It is very pretty, but it doesn't look as comfortable as you, mother."