What Cosmopolitan Would Look Like As Edited by Jane Austen

via Cosmo Mag Gets Eighteenth-Century Makeover by Emily Esfahani Smith at « Acculturated:

Someone at the humor website Historic LOLs had some fun giving Cosmopolitan magazine an eighteenth-century makeover. It’s a far cry from the sex-obsessed magazine of today, but this new old version of it is something that even Jane Austen might approve of:

Well, that may be taking it too far. But that’s what makes this cover so great: By placing the magazine in a more prudish context, but using similar headlines as those of today, this cover highlights just how absurd and over-the-top Cosmo‘s contemporary covers are.

***

Parody is one way to respond to Cosmopolitan magazine. But there’s another way, too–one that six New York women have hit upon. If you’re interested in a real fashion magazine for women that is classier than those on the stands today, then check out Verily magazine, a new publication that is bucking the Cosmo trend. Managed by six New York professionals, the new magazine is seeking to engage “in conversation on what it means to be authentic women in the 21st century.”

Read the whole thing.