About InStyle (German edition)

InStyle (German edition)

InStyle is the German edition of the international women's fashion magazine, published monthly in Munich by Hubert Burda Media. Launched in the United States by Time Inc. in 1994 and introduced to Germany on 10 March 1999, it pioneered the "star fashion" concept: not just the looks from the catwalk, but the fashion of the red carpet and the street, centered on the lifestyle of stars and style icons. With a sold circulation of 170,190 copies (IVW 1/2025) — up 10.2 percent since 1999, a rarity in German print — and line extensions including InStyle Men, InStyle Beauty and InStyle Mini & Me, it celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2024 as one of the most successful licensed magazine brands in the German market. Its editor-in-chief is Sophie Grützner, and its digital home is instyle.de.

Overview

InStyle is a monthly German-language women's fashion magazine — ISSN 1438-2180 — published in Munich by Hubert Burda Media under license from the American brand owner. The international brand was founded in the USA in 1994 by Time Inc. and is published in more than sixteen countries; the German edition has been published by Burda since 1999. The magazine's concept, in Burda's own description, is the original of all star-fashion magazines: at the center of the monthly fashion magazine are not only the current fashion trends but also the lifestyle of the stars and style icons of our time.

The editorial idea that made InStyle distinctive was the democratization of fashion authority. Traditional fashion magazines showed the catwalk; InStyle was the first magazine to show not just the looks from the runway but also from the red carpet and the street — treating the celebrity's off-duty outfit and the style icon's personal look as fashion statements equal to the designer's collection. That concept, radical in 1994 and 1999, became the grammar of all fashion media in the social-media age — and InStyle, having invented it in print, has spent a quarter-century defending its authorship.

History

The American InStyle was launched on 23 May 1994 by Time Inc. in the United States. The German edition appeared for the first time on 10 March 1999 at Hubert Burda Media in Munich — the licensed German version of the American star-fashion magazine, and, as the German Wikipedia notes of the Burda history, a license product of the US Time publishing house brought to the German market in 1998/1999. The founding editor-in-chief was Patricia Riekel, who established the title in the German market.

The editorial leadership since then reads as a chronicle of German fashion journalism. In 2006 the spin-off InStyle Beauty was launched; in December 2007 Annette Weber became editor-in-chief; in 2010 the spin-off InStyle Men appeared for the first time. In February 2016 Kerstin Weng succeeded Annette Weber as editor-in-chief. In 2017 and 2019 jobs were cut for financial reasons — the structural pressures of the print market reaching even a successful title. In November 2017 Time Inc. was taken over by the Meredith Corporation, changing the licensor behind the international brand. After Kerstin Weng moved to Vogue, Sophie Grützner became the new editor-in-chief in February 2022. In the same month, the American print edition was discontinued — the German edition continuing as one of the brand's print strongholds.

In April 2024 the German edition celebrated its 25th anniversary with an exclusive party at Munich's P1 club, attended by international stars including Olivia Palermo and her husband Johannes Huebl together with editor-in-chief Sophie Grützner. The anniversary was presented by Burda as proof of the publishing house's ability to continuously develop and diversify its brands: from the traditional fashion magazine to a digital 360-degree lifestyle brand. The circulation history supports the claim: the sold circulation of 170,190 copies (IVW 1/2025) represents growth of 10.2 percent since 1999 — in a German magazine market where almost every title has shrunk, InStyle Germany has grown.

Content

The content of the German InStyle is organized around the star-fashion concept: fashion trends presented through celebrities and style icons, beauty coverage, and lifestyle reporting on the world the stars inhabit. The monthly magazine gives its readers — around 900,000 per the Burda Journalistenschule's account — a fast overview of the newest trends and impulses for their own fashion and beauty style. The departments cover the full fashion cycle: what is worn on the catwalks, what the stars wear on the red carpet, and how the looks translate to the street and to the reader's wardrobe.

The line extensions deepen the brand in specific directions. InStyle Beauty (since 2006) covers cosmetics, skincare and fragrance; InStyle Men (since 2010) applies the star-fashion concept to menswear; InStyle Mini & Me (since October 2019) addresses mothers and children; and the portfolio has been extended with the InStyle Influencer Issue and, most recently, InStyle Sport with fitness star Pamela Reif on the cover — four line extensions plus the sport special, each carrying the brand's fashion authority into an adjacent audience.

The editorial voice is fast, visual and celebrity-close: the magazine's authority comes from access — to the stars, to the stylists, to the front rows — and from the speed with which it translates what is seen there into what the reader can wear. The 25-year claim of the anniversary — the first magazine to bring the red carpet to the street — remains the editorial program: fashion as it is lived by the people the readers admire, reported with the professionalism of a Munich fashion newsroom.

Coverage & Audience

The German InStyle covers the international fashion world from its Munich base, with a German-market lens: the global trends, the international stars, and the German celebrities, influencers and style icons who localize the brand. The licensed structure means the German edition participates in the international InStyle brand family — the cooperation with the sister editions is part of the editorial model — while the Munich newsroom produces the German content, the German covers, and the German line extensions.

The audience is the young, fashion-interested woman — the reader who follows trends through celebrities and social media rather than through the traditional fashion press. The documented figures are a sold circulation of 170,190 copies (IVW 1/2025), a distributed circulation of 171,986, a reach of 1.13 million readers (MA 2020 I), and around 900,000 readers per issue in the publisher's own account. The growth of 10.2 percent since 1999 makes the German InStyle an outlier in the German magazine market — a licensed brand that has expanded its audience while the segment around it contracted. The line extensions multiply that audience: men, beauty buyers, young mothers, and the fitness-interested each get their own InStyle.

Ownership

The German edition of InStyle is published by Hubert Burda Media, the Offenburg-based media group, from its Munich editorial offices. The brand itself is American: founded by Time Inc. in 1994, licensed internationally, and since November 2017 owned by the Meredith Corporation following its takeover of Time Inc. Burda has held the German license since the 1999 launch, making the German InStyle one of the longest-running licensed editions of the brand worldwide.

The Burda ownership has shaped the title's development from a licensed fashion magazine into a diversified lifestyle brand. The launch of the line extensions — Beauty in 2006, Men in 2010, Mini & Me in 2019, the Influencer Issue and Sport — was the work of the Burda publishing organization, and the 25th anniversary in 2024 was presented as evidence of the BurdaVerlag's brand-development capability. The editor-in-chief is Sophie Grützner, in office since February 2022, succeeding Kerstin Weng (2016–2022), Annette Weber (2007–2016) and founding editor-in-chief Patricia Riekel. The Munich editorial seat places the magazine in Germany's southern media capital, alongside Burda's other Munich-based titles.

Digital Presence

The digital home of the brand is instyle.de (the official domain attributed via the German Wikipedia and the inventory). The website carries the star-fashion concept into the digital medium: trend reporting, celebrity style coverage, and beauty content updated continuously — the daily version of the monthly magazine's program. For a brand whose concept anticipated the social-media fashion economy, the digital presence is the natural habitat: the red-carpet-to-street pipeline that InStyle invented in print is now the native language of Instagram and TikTok.

The digital strategy is the 360-degree lifestyle brand that Burda described at the 25th anniversary: the monthly print magazine as the anchor, the website and social channels as the daily operation, and the line extensions — Men, Beauty, Mini & Me, Sport — as the audience-specific verticals. Twenty-five years after the German launch on 10 March 1999, the German InStyle is both the heir of the American original and a Munich-made media brand in its own right — the original star-fashion magazine, still growing, in print and on screen.