The Scenic Drive celebrates Women's Month: SARIE Magazine
The Scenic Drive with Rian is celebrating Women’s Month by reliving some of our favourite interviews with some of SA’s most loved women!
On July 6, 1949 Sarie Marais, the first glossy magazine for contemporary Afrikaans women, hit the streets with a bang, breaking all South African media records by selling out on that very first day. By noon not a single copy was to be found on shelves countrywide. On the cover were two women: one resembling the past, the other modern, forward-looking, her look Dior-inspired.
A star was born!
SARIE’s July birthday issue celebrates 70 years of inspiration and innovation. A proudly SA title that has grown from the first issue selling 35 000 copies to an influential, powerful brand, making 3 million* reader connections monthly through a variety of top-quality print products, several digital and television platforms as well as reader functions and workshops countrywide.
“Right from that very first issue, the message was crystal clear,” SARIE Editor-in-chief Michélle van Breda points out.
“The magazine would be inspirational; a leader and not a follower. A strategy SARIE pursued over the years and holds to this day.
“And what a celebration it is!” Michélle says. “To not only survive seventy years of challenges, ongoing competition from local and international magazines and a rapidly changing media landscape, but also remain the leading female glossy in the country accounts for generations of loyal readers, supportive advertisers and resilient editorial teams. No-one ever gave up!”
ALSO READ: Redakteur van SARIE vier 70 jaar van inspirasie
SARIE’s birthday issue features Rolene Strauss (Miss World and Miss SA 2014) on two different covers which will be on-shelf simultaneously throughout the country from July 1. The original 1949 Sarie Marais cover was the inspiration for both. A faint image of the original cover appears on the background of both issues, creatively linking the magazine’s past to the present.
“We could not have wished for someone more ideal than Rolene. Not only is she a SARIE reader (as are her mother and grandmother!), but her look is classical and she interpreted the two covers – one nostalgic, the other more contemporary – with great style and ease,” says Michélle. The two cover blouses featured were specially made by top SA designer Casper Bosman. Each reader can also look forward to a free gift with each copy – with a choice between three scarves, two portraying SARIE covers from the 1950s, the third colourful and sporting the magazine’s modern S logo.
Michélle emphasises that SARIE is integral to the media history of South Africa and as relevant today as it was 70 years ago when thousands of Afrikaans women dreamt of an inspirational women’s magazine in their own language. “It’s simply a case of a promise made, is a promise kept. It will remain so for a long time to come.”
