About Glamour

Glamour

Glamour is the German edition of one of the world's best-known women's fashion magazines, published by Condé Nast Germany from its Munich headquarters. Launched in spring 2001, it quickly became a fixture of the German women's magazine market with its mix of fashion, beauty, lifestyle and celebrity coverage, and for years it ranked among the highest-circulation titles in its segment. After decades as a monthly print title, the German edition now appears quarterly in print while its digital platform glamour.de carries daily fashion and lifestyle journalism. The magazine is aimed at young women interested in accessible fashion, beauty trends and pop culture, and it is best known publicly for the Glamour Shopping Week, a twice-yearly retail event staged in cooperation with department stores and shopping centres across Germany. In 2026 the title made industry headlines when Condé Nast announced it would wind down its German publishing operation, only for a licensing deal to secure the brand's continued presence in the German market weeks later.

Overview

Glamour in Germany is the national edition of an American magazine brand founded in the United States in 1939 under the title Glamour of Hollywood. The German version is produced by Condé Nast Germany GmbH in Munich and is published in German for readers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Its editorial mix centres on fashion, beauty, style, celebrity news, relationships and lifestyle, with the tone deliberately lighter and more shopping-oriented than its sister title Vogue, which targets the luxury end of the market. Where Vogue speaks to high fashion, Glamour has always positioned itself as the magazine for women who want fashion advice they can actually afford and wear, a positioning that helped it build a large readership in the 2000s.

The German Glamour debuted in spring 2001, launched simultaneously with the British edition, and arrived on the newsstand with what was at the time the largest marketing budget in the history of Condé Nast in Germany. The title rapidly established itself in the competitive German women's magazine market, competing with titles such as Brigitte, Freundin, Cosmopolitan and Joy. At its peak in the late 2000s, the German edition sold several hundred thousand copies per issue and reached well over a million readers, figures that reflected the broad appeal of its affordable-fashion concept. Over the following decade the magazine adapted to the structural decline of print, reducing its frequency and expanding its digital offering on glamour.de, its social media channels and its e-commerce activities.

The most visible brand extension of German Glamour is the Glamour Shopping Week, held twice a year in spring and autumn. During the event, readers who buy the accompanying issue receive a shopping card entitling them to discounts and gifts at participating retailers, with hundreds of partner brands taking part nationwide. The Shopping Week has grown into one of the German magazine market's most successful reader events and a significant source of revenue for the brand, combining editorial fashion content with direct retail activation in a way that few other German magazines have replicated. The magazine also presents the Glamour Women of the Year awards, following a tradition the American edition has maintained since 1980.

History

The Glamour brand was created in the United States in 1939, when Condé Nast launched Glamour of Hollywood as a magazine aimed at young women entering the workforce and public life. The title proved durable, and after the Second World War it became one of the flagship publications of the Condé Nast portfolio alongside Vogue. International expansion gathered pace in the late twentieth century, and by the turn of the millennium Glamour editions were appearing in more than a dozen countries, making it one of the most widely licensed women's magazine brands in the world.

Condé Nast Germany, the Munich-based subsidiary of the American publishing group, announced in the summer of 2000 that it would bring Glamour to the German market the following spring. The launch was a major strategic bet: the company backed the new title with a marketing budget of 15 million Deutschmarks, then the largest launch budget in its German history. Bettina Wündrich was appointed as the first editor-in-chief of the German edition. The debut issue appeared in spring 2001, and the magazine was published monthly from the outset. The launch coincided with the debut of Glamour in the United Kingdom, and both editions shared the brand's international identity while developing their own national editorial voices.

The 2000s were the commercial high point of German Glamour. The title benefited from a fashion cycle that favoured accessible high-street style, and its shopping-service journalism distinguished it from both the luxury titles and the more general-interest women's weeklies. Nikolaus Albrecht led the editorial team from 2004 to 2008, followed by Andrea Ketterer from 2008 to 2020, a long tenure that gave the magazine editorial continuity through the first wave of digital disruption. During these years the German Glamour was a monthly fixture on newsstands, with verified circulation figures in the hundreds of thousands and a readership that peaked at around 1.7 million according to audience measurement data of the period.

Like the rest of the German magazine market, Glamour felt the migration of readers and advertisers to digital platforms in the 2010s. Condé Nast responded by restructuring its German portfolio, and the frequency of the print edition was reduced over time. Georg Wittmann took over as editor-in-chief in 2020, and Theresa Pichler has held the position since 2023. The most dramatic chapter in the title's recent history came in April 2026, when Condé Nast chief executive Roger Lynch announced a global restructuring that included winding down Glamour's publishing operations in Germany, Spain and Mexico, alongside the closure of the American Self magazine and Wired's Italian edition. German media reported the move as the likely end of the German Glamour after 25 years. The reprieve came in early July 2026, when industry press reported that a licensing deal with Condé Nast would keep Glamour alive in Germany, reversing the closure decision and securing the brand's future in the German market.

Content and Sections

The editorial content of German Glamour is built around fashion and beauty as its two core pillars, supplemented by lifestyle, celebrity, culture and relationship coverage. Fashion coverage ranges from trend reports and styling advice to street-style photography and shopping guides, with a consistent emphasis on looks that readers can recreate at accessible price points. The magazine's fashion editors work with both high-street retailers and designer labels, but the editorial voice is pitched at the everyday wardrobe rather than the runway. Seasonal fashion specials accompany the spring and autumn collections, and the issues timed to the Glamour Shopping Week carry extensive shopping-service content linked to the event's partner brands.

Beauty is the second major section, covering cosmetics, skincare, hair and fragrance with product tests, tutorials and interviews with make-up artists and dermatologists. The beauty pages follow the same service-oriented approach as the fashion coverage, favouring practical guidance over abstract trend forecasting. Celebrity and entertainment coverage forms another regular component, with interviews and photo features on actresses, musicians and influencers, alongside red-carpet fashion reporting from events such as film festivals and award ceremonies.

The lifestyle sections address relationships, careers, health and travel, written in an accessible, conversational tone aimed at women in their twenties and thirties. The digital platform glamour.de extends this mix with daily news updates, video content and social-media-native formats, and it has become the primary channel for the brand's younger audience. The German edition also maintains the international Glamour tradition of the Women of the Year honours, celebrating prominent women from culture, sport, business and public life. Special editions and brand extensions, including the shopping-card issues tied to the Shopping Week, round out an editorial programme designed to keep the magazine relevant in a media environment where print issues are now quarterly events rather than monthly habits.

Publisher and Organization

German Glamour is published by Condé Nast Germany GmbH, the Munich-based German subsidiary of the American media group Condé Nast, which is owned by Advance Publications. Condé Nast Germany was re-established in Munich in 1978 and is headquartered on the Altstadtring in the Bavarian capital, where it also produces the German editions of Vogue, GQ and Architectural Digest. The managing director of Condé Nast Germany is Natalia Gamero del Castillo. The German Glamour's editor-in-chief is Theresa Pichler, who took over the role in 2023, succeeding Georg Wittmann (2020 to 2023), Andrea Ketterer (2008 to 2020) and Nikolaus Albrecht (2004 to 2008). The founding editor-in-chief at the 2001 launch was Bettina Wündrich.

The 2026 licensing arrangement that secured the title's future means the German Glamour continues to operate under the international Glamour brand while its publishing economics were restructured. The print edition currently appears quarterly, a significant change from the monthly rhythm of its first two decades, reflecting both the economics of the German print market and the shift of the brand's centre of gravity to digital. The magazine's print ISSN is 1617-3929. Audience data from the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Media-Analyse credited the title with just under one million readers in 2020, a figure that illustrates both the scale the brand once commanded and the audience erosion that prompted the 2026 restructuring.

Digital Presence

The digital home of German Glamour is glamour.de, which serves as the brand's daily publishing platform alongside the quarterly print issues. The website carries fashion and beauty news, celebrity coverage, lifestyle articles and video content, and it is closely integrated with the magazine's social media channels on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Pinterest and YouTube, where Glamour maintains some of the largest followings among German women's media brands. The digital operation also supports the Glamour Shopping Week, with a dedicated app and online features that extend the twice-yearly retail event beyond the print issue.

The e-commerce dimension has become increasingly important to the brand's business model. The Shopping Week's digital infrastructure allows readers to discover participating retailers and offers online, and affiliate and partnership revenues from shopping content supplement traditional display advertising. Condé Nast's global digital strategy, which has emphasised video, social distribution and commerce across all its brands, is reflected in the German Glamour's online operation. The winding-down announcement of April 2026 and the subsequent licensing rescue were both covered extensively in the German trade press, underscoring how closely the industry watches the fate of legacy print brands. With the licensing deal in place, glamour.de continues as the brand's main editorial channel, carrying the German Glamour into its next quarter-century as a predominantly digital fashion and lifestyle medium with a quarterly print anchor.