About Jolie

Jolie

Jolie — the German women's fashion magazine published by the Mediengruppe Klambt in Hamburg — is the young fashion monthly for readers who want style without the luxury-magazine distance: wearable fashion, beauty, lifestyle and celebrity, aimed at young women in their twenties and thirties. Launched in 2003 by Axel Springer, it has passed through Vision Media to Klambt, and since 2024 appears every two months.

Overview

Jolie (French for "pretty") is a German women's magazine published by the Mediengruppe Klambt in Hamburg. The first issue appeared on 30 September 2003, published in a print run of 700,000 copies. The editor-in-chief is Julia Wöltjen; the magazine's ISSN is 1612-958X. The sold circulation is 37,812 copies (IVW 4/2024) — a decline of 89.6 percent since 2003, one of the steepest circulation falls in the German women's press, reflecting both the segment's structural crisis and the title's turbulent ownership history.

Since the second issue of 2024, the magazine's concept has been revised and it appears every two months (previously monthly). Wikipedia lists jolie.de as the magazine's website.

History

The first issue of Jolie was published on 30 September 2003 with a print run of 700,000 copies — a major launch in the young women's segment. The magazine was initially published by the Axel Springer Mediahouse Munich, a subsidiary of the Axel Springer AG, which had created the Munich operation for its women's and youth titles.

In July 2009 the magazine was sold to Vision Media, part of the OZ Verlag group, and the Axel Springer Mediahouse Munich was dissolved — part of Springer's retreat from the women's magazine segment in Munich. The 2010 circulation of 375,642 copies marked the magazine's peak — the young women's fashion monthly at the height of its market power, before the smartphone era transformed the segment. A sign of the title's ambition in those years: in July 2010 Jolie (together with the fashion monthly Madame) published its July issue in 3D — an experiment in print innovation at a moment when magazines were still searching for ways to make paper compete with screens. Anja Müller-Lochner served as editor-in-chief during this period, leading the title through its strongest years.

For the magazine's tenth anniversary, Jolie was comprehensively revised in January 2013 — a relaunch intended to sharpen its profile in the increasingly crowded young women's market, where it competed with Glamour, Joy, Cosmopolitan and the growing digital offerings.

In February 2018 the Mediengruppe Klambt took over the magazine, and the editorial office moved from Munich to Hamburg — part of Klambt's expansion in the women's segment, which also brought Grazia (2010 launch), the Jahreszeiten titles (2018) and the Funke titles (2025) into the Speyer group's portfolio. In June 2022 Klambt created a central print editorial office for Grazia, Petra, Jolie and Für Sie — pooling the fashion titles' print production while keeping the brands distinct.

With the second issue of 2024, the magazine's concept was revised again and the frequency changed from monthly to bimonthly — the adaptation to a market where the monthly fashion magazine's economics no longer work for titles at Jolie's circulation level.

Content and Concept

Jolie's content covers fashion, beauty, lifestyle and celebrities for young women — the classic young-women's mix, with Jolie's particular emphasis on wearability: fashion for real life, not the runway fantasy. The magazine positioned itself between the luxury glossies (Vogue, Elle) above and the service weeklies below: young, fashion-forward, affordable.

The tone is encouraging and accessible — the older-sister voice of the young women's press, in contrast to the luxury titles' authority. Beauty tutorials, styling advice, relationship and career coverage, celebrity news: the content mix designed for the twenty-something reader navigating fashion, work and life. The magazine's fashion coverage emphasized the high street as well as the catwalk — translating runway trends into looks its readers could actually buy and wear, a service function the luxury monthlies never attempted.

Coverage and Audience

Jolie appears every two months (previously monthly), in German, from Hamburg. Its audience is young women — roughly 20 to 35 — fashion-interested, trend-conscious, urban. The sold circulation of 37,812 copies (late 2024) reflects the title's diminished scale, but the brand's two-decade history and Klambt's portfolio give it a continuity few young women's titles have achieved.

The magazine's competitive environment has transformed since 2003: the young women's fashion audience now discovers trends on social media, and the monthly (now bimonthly) print cycle competes with the infinite speed of the feed. The bimonthly frequency is the sustainable form: fewer, stronger issues, each designed to matter. The circulation decline — 89.6 percent since 2003 — is among the steepest in the German women's press, but it mirrors the segment's overall trajectory: the young women's monthly, as a category, has been the print market's hardest-hit segment, with titles closing or retreating across Europe.

Ownership

Jolie is published by the Klambt-Verlag GmbH & Co. KG in Hamburg, part of the Mediengruppe Klambt — the Speyer-based family media group that publishes around 65 magazine titles in Germany and abroad, including program guides, weekly women's magazines, and puzzle, hairstyle and food titles. Within Klambt's women's portfolio, Jolie sits alongside Grazia (the fashion biweekly), Petra (the fashion monthly), Für Sie (the upscale fortnightly) and the weekly titles acquired from Funke in 2025 — a comprehensive women's offering from the young fashion monthly to the classic service weekly.

The magazine's ownership history traces the German women's press's consolidation: launched by Axel Springer (2003–2009), sold to Vision Media/OZ Verlag (2009–2018), acquired by Klambt (2018–present). Each change of ownership brought a new editorial home — Munich under Springer and Vision Media, Hamburg under Klambt — and each reflected the segment's shifting economics. The OZ Verlag, Jolie's owner from 2009 to 2018, was itself a specialist in women's and craft magazines — a more natural home for the title than the Springer conglomerate, but still unable to arrest the segment's structural decline.

Digital Presence

The digital edition extends the bimonthly print brand online, where fashion, beauty and lifestyle content competes with influencers, social media and the digital operations of the monthly glossies. Under Klambt's ownership, the digital brand benefits from the group's online infrastructure and the shared resources of the central fashion editorial office. The challenge is the young women's press's universal one: converting the print brand's fashion credibility into digital relevance for an audience that discovers fashion on phones, not on newsstands. For Jolie, whose readers are digital natives by age, the website and social channels are not supplements to the magazine but the primary battleground — the bimonthly print issue the anchor, the digital brand the daily presence.

Twenty years after the 700,000-copy launch — through Springer, Vision Media and Klambt, from Munich to Hamburg, from monthly to bimonthly — Jolie remains what it set out to be: the young German women's fashion magazine for readers who want style for real life. Smaller than in its heyday, but still publishing: a survivor of the young women's press's most turbulent two decades. The bimonthly Jolie, produced within Klambt's central fashion editorial alongside Grazia, Petra and Für Sie, carries the brand's twenty-year heritage into a market where the fashion monthly must justify every issue — and where Jolie's answer, as always, is fashion for real life, beautifully presented — the French promise of prettiness, kept in Hamburg, every two months.