About Petra

Petra

Petra is a German monthly women's fashion magazine published from Hamburg. Launched in 1964 by the Constanze-Verlag, it has been published by the Mediengruppe Klambt since September 2018. Per IVW figures for the fourth quarter of 2024, Petra sold 55,159 copies per issue with a spread circulation of 62,740 — a decline of 83.4 percent since 1998. Editor-in-chief is Sabine Bartels.

Overview

Petra is the monthly fashion magazine for women who want style guidance without the metropolitan hauteur of the international glossies: wearable fashion, beauty, lifestyle and service, produced in Hamburg with a distinctly German practicality. Its six-decade history spans three publishing houses and the entire arc of the German women's magazine boom and bust — from the 1960s optimism of its founding to the present-day struggle for print survival.

History

The magazine was launched in 1964 by the Constanze-Verlag — the Hamburg publishing house that a year later, in 1965, merged with the Jahr and Bucerius companies and the Gruner printing business to form Gruner + Jahr, Europe's future magazine giant. The timing made Petra one of the last launches of the old Constanze era and one of the first titles of the G+J age: conceived in the final months of an independent family publisher, born into the consolidation that would define German magazine publishing for the next half-century.

The editorial concept came from Hans Huffzky, the magazine's first editor-in-chief, who gave Petra its fashion-forward identity from the start. Huffzky understood that the 1960s fashion revolution — Mary Quant, Courrèges, the youthquake — needed a German interpreter: a magazine that translated Paris and London into wardrobes for Hamburg, Munich and Düsseldorf. Petra's early years rode that wave, establishing it as the monthly fashion authority for the modern German woman.

In 1969 the magazine was sold to the Jahreszeiten Verlag — the Hamburg house founded in 1950, part of the Ganske group — where the magazine Film und Frau was merged into it, consolidating Jahreszeiten's women's portfolio. The Film und Frau merger brought cinema glamour into Petra's fashion DNA: film stars, premieres, and the intersection of screen and style that would remain part of the magazine's identity. Under Jahreszeiten, Petra became the monthly fashion companion to the fortnightly Für Sie: where Für Sie covered the breadth of women's lives — career, family, culture, travel — Petra focused on fashion and style, the two titles cross-pollinating in the same Hamburg editorial building.

The Tagesspiegel profiled the magazine in August 2004 under the headline "Wenn Frauen zu sehr geizen" ("When women bargain too much") — a snapshot of Petra at the height of the German fashion press, when the title still commanded a significant readership and the industry's economics still worked. The years that followed would test that model to destruction across the entire segment.

In September 2018 the magazine was taken over by the Mediengruppe Klambt, as part of Klambt's acquisition of six titles from the Jahreszeiten Verlag — the Hamburg house's withdrawal from women's magazines to concentrate on its premium travel and gourmet core. From November 2019 Petra and Für Sie were produced by a joint editorial team led by Sabine Bartels — a consolidation that pooled the two titles' editorial resources while maintaining their distinct identities: Für Sie the fortnightly generalist, Petra the monthly fashion specialist. The joint model is Klambt's answer to the fashion press's economics: shared photography, shared production, shared expertise, with each title keeping its own voice and rhythm.

Petra's circulation history — from a leading fashion monthly to 55,159 sold copies in late 2024, down 83.4 percent since 1998 — charts the brutal economics of the German fashion press, squeezed between the international glossies (Vogue, Elle, InStyle) above and digital fashion content below. Yet Petra's survival where titles like Allegra folded testifies to the loyalty of its core readership and the efficiency of the Klambt joint-editorial model: a lean operation serving readers who still want a monthly fashion magazine made for German realities.

Content and concept

As a monthly women's fashion magazine, Petra covers fashion trends, beauty, lifestyle and service topics with a practical, accessible approach — the German virtue of Tragbarkeit (wearability) as editorial principle. The monthly rhythm allows for more elaborate fashion productions and deeper style features than the weeklies can attempt, while the Hamburg editorial perspective keeps the content grounded in German readers' realities rather than Parisian fantasy: fashion for the office, the weekend, the evening — for lives actually lived. The joint editorial operation with Für Sie since 2019 has allowed the sharing of resources — fashion expertise, photography, production — across the two titles, giving Petra access to capabilities its standalone circulation could no longer fund.

Coverage and audience

Petra's audience is fashion-interested women seeking wearable style guidance: the monthly format serves readers who plan their wardrobes rather than impulse-buying them — women who want to know what to wear to the office in October, not what a celebrity wore to a premiere last night. The title's German practicality has always been its differentiator in a fashion press dominated by French and Italian aesthetics: Petra never asked its readers to be someone else, only to be themselves, better dressed. The circulation history — from a leading fashion monthly to 55,159 sold copies in late 2024, down 83.4 percent since 1998 — charts the brutal economics of the German fashion press, squeezed between the international glossies (Vogue, Elle, InStyle) above and digital fashion content below. Petra's survival where titles like Allegra folded testifies to the loyalty of its core readership and the efficiency of the Klambt joint-editorial model.

Ownership

Since September 2018 Petra has been published by the Mediengruppe Klambt in Hamburg, the Speyer-based media group that acquired six Jahreszeiten women's titles. Klambt — a traditional publisher of women's and entertainment magazines — produces Petra alongside Für Sie from Hamburg, with Sabine Bartels leading the joint editorial team since November 2019. The magazine's publishing history traces the consolidation of the German magazine industry: Constanze-Verlag (1964–1965), Gruner + Jahr (1965–1969), Jahreszeiten Verlag (1969–2018), Klambt (since 2018).

Digital presence

petra.de extends the magazine's fashion journalism online, where style advice, trend reports and beauty content compete with fashion influencers, online retailers' editorial content and social media. The brand's challenge is the fashion press's universal one: the monthly print cycle is slow for fashion news but right for fashion judgment — curation, styling authority, and the tactile pleasure of the fashion photograph, the things a feed cannot provide. Under Klambt's ownership, the digital brand must convert Petra's six decades of fashion credibility into online relevance without losing the print readers who still buy the monthly. The joint editorial team with Für Sie gives the digital operation shared resources; the task is to make Petra's voice distinct in a crowded digital fashion landscape — Hamburg practicality against Parisian fantasy, wearable against unwearable.

Sixty years after Hans Huffzky's 1964 concept, Petra endures as Hamburg's fashion monthly: smaller than in its heyday, but still publishing — a survivor of the German fashion press's most turbulent half-century. From Constanze to Klambt, from the youthquake to Instagram, the magazine has adapted its fashion to every era while keeping its essential promise: style guidance for real women, made in Hamburg, in a magazine that respects its readers' intelligence as much as their taste. The monthly Petra remains Klambt's fashion-monthly anchor — Hamburg-made style guidance, sixty years on.