Mag Hags – Details, episodes & analysis

Lucy and Franki are back with more dispatches from vintage women’s glossies. 

This week, Lucy is heading to Honey magazine March 1976 – but it’s less Patti Smith and Sex! on the Kings Road, more women named Sue and unequal division of household labour. 

We also meet the last of debutantes, contemplate a bath-time workout, and witness a disastrous PR campaign for British Rail. 

Meanwhile Franki is underwhelmed by “Strip Monopoly”. And the Mag Hags ponder: did the editorial staff of mid-70s Honey realise they were selling the bucolic lesbian dream? 

Want more of these magazines?

Sign up for the Mag Hags newsletter. See the features we talk about, marvel at the amazing adverts, enjoy vintage fashion, beauty, and lifestyle tips, and get access to loads of other bonus bits. Plus episode transcripts straight to your inbox. Go to maghags.substack.com

CHAPTERS

04:43 – Intro to Honey March 1976

11:18 – Weekending: Five women tell us what their average 1976 weekend looks like

31:35 – *An ad break from 1976*

35:04 – Is selfishness a sin or a necessity? Therapy speak, 1976-style 

45:53 – Fashion and beauty tips from 1976

47:16 – How lovely to be beautiful? Honey tackles the immutable question: is being hot bad, actually?

51:25 – A brainwave for bathtime: a workout how-to that is absolute perfection, 10/10, no notes

52:35 – What's hot and what's not in 1976

LINKS

Read: ‘Having it all: Love, success, sex, money, even if you’re starting with nothing’ by Helen Gurley Brown

Read: Helen Gurley Brown obituary by Sali Hughes

Podcast: The Rest is History – Britain in 1974

Read: From balls to Bridgerton: a brief history of debutantes and the social season 

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Mag Hags is written and hosted by Lucy Douglas and Franki Cookney.

Editing and audio production by Franki Cookney.

Our theme music is Look Where That Got You, Mattie Maguire. Additional music: Leotard Haul, Dez Moran. Both courtesy of www.epidemicsound.com.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the very first episode of Mag Hags, the podcast that every modern woman should know.

Join Franki and Lucy as they dive into the glossy archives of women’s magazines to find out what's still hot, and what's definitely not. 

And where else to begin than the OG of having it all: Cosmopolitan.

Franki has travelled back in time to October 1982, when The Pill turned 21 and publishers were just cottoning on to the idea that women buy books.

Elsewhere, a hapless man gets some Thatcherite therapy and the Mag Hags get some dinner inspo from a truly astonishing advertiser.

Plus, Lucy reveals her daddy issues about His Majesty King Charles III.

Want more of these magazines?

Sign up for the Mag Hags newsletter. See the features we talk about, marvel at the amazing adverts, enjoy vintage fashion, beauty, and lifestyle tips, and get access to loads of other bonus bits. Plus episode transcripts straight to your inbox. Go to maghags.substack.com

CHAPTERS

07:09 – Intro to Cosmo October 1982

09:33 – Girl Bossing vs Having It All

10:29 – The pill that promised so much: A review of 21 years of oral contraceptives written by someone who's never taken them

26:47 – *An ad break from 1982*

30:09 – Talking It Out : A Cosmo "counselling" session that reads more like a scolding

38:13 – Tactful sex tactics: Can you use the word "fondle" without laughing

42:28 – Fashion and beauty tips from 1982

44:42 – Frills or Thrills: Trashy paperbacks are having a moment. Is it good, steamy fun or patronising frivolity?

48:37 – What's hot and what's not in 1982

LINKS

Research: On coils and ectopic pregnancies: Safety, efficacy and patient acceptability of the contraceptive and non-contraceptive uses of the LNG-IUS | International Journal of Women’s Health, 2009

Read: On Erin Pizzey: Feminism’s Purity Wars by Helen Lewis | The Atlantic, Feb 2020

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Mag Hags is written and hosted by Lucy Douglas and Franki Cookney.

Editing and audio production by Franki Cookney.

Our theme music is Look Where That Got You, Mattie Maguire. Additional music: Leotard Haul, Dez Moran. Both courtesy of www.epidemicsound.com.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mag Hags is a brand new podcast that celebrates and interrogates the glossy women’s magazines of the 70s, 80s, and 90s.

If you love magazines, 20th century pop culture, and questionable life advice on glossy paper stock, then join us each fortnight when we’ll be diving into a vintage issue to find out what’s still hot, and what’s definitely not.

First episode drops WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 02 2024.

Subscribe to our newsletter to get access to all the features and adverts we discuss, PLUS extra vintage fashion, beauty and lifestyle tips that we couldn’t quite fit into the show!

Mag Hags is written and hosted by Franki Cookney and Lucy Douglas.

Trailer editing and audio production by Elly Lazarides.

Our theme music is Look Where That Got You, Mattie Maguire, courtesy of www.epidemicsound.com.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Mag Hags are back and cooking with gas! This episode Franki and Lucy ponder on some cutting edge household appliances – cordless iron, anyone? Because, yes, Franki is guiding us on a tour through Good Housekeeping, March 1988. 

There’s Ovaltine innuendo, shoulder-revealing fashion, and a self-help book extract suggesting that Lucy could be a threat to Franki’s marriage. 

Plus, a questionable beauty feature calls for back-up, so Franki speaks to award-winning beauty editor and author Anita Bhagwandas. 

Want more of these mags?

Sign up for the Mag Hags newsletter. See the features we talk about in the show, marvel at the amazing adverts, enjoy vintage fashion, beauty, and lifestyle tips, and get access to loads of other bonus bits. Plus episode transcripts straight to your inbox. Go to maghags.substack.com

LINKS

Read: Pessimist’s Archive: an archive of historical, technology pessimism https://pessimistsarchive.org/ 

Read: Ugly: Giving us back our beauty standards by Anita Bhagwandas 

CHAPTERS

05:06 – What’s on the cover of Good Housekeeping March 1988 

15:04 – The enemy within: Is TV bringing about the moral downfall of society?

25:55 – *An ad break from 1988*

28:37 – Examining the English vs American vs French approach to beauty… with problematic results

35:15 – Anita Bhagwandas shares her take with the Mag Hags 

48:24 – Fashion and beauty tips from 1988

50:40 – Don’t take your love life lying down: Self-help guru Paul Pearsall reveals why your friendships are ruining your marriage

58:41 – What's hot and what's not in 1988 

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Mag Hags is written and hosted by Lucy Douglas and Franki Cookney.

Editing and audio production by Franki Cookney.

Our theme music is Look Where That Got You, Mattie Maguire. Additional music: Leotard Haul, Dez Moran. Both courtesy of www.epidemicsound.com.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.