Oral History Project: ‘Remembering Nova 1965-1975’
‘I first bought Nova magazine at Grimsby station going home from art
college and it really stood out on the table. It was a different format
and it was very striking and it just looked like something very special
and very different and I felt quite special buying it because nobody else
did up in Grimsby. I can remember that feeling, I felt that I was
progressive by buying something like that, I was entering a more grown up,
intellectual, sophisticated world’ (LM: Reader)
‘I remember Nova was a magazine that was good; it was visually stylish,
smart. It was about style and image, I suppose by buying it and having it
you thought you were more exclusive, part of the fabric of the whole
thing’ (JB: Reader)
This year marks the 40-year anniversary of the birth of Nova, the
revolutionary women’s magazine published in Britain from 1965-1975.
Nova employed cutting edge writers, designers and editors who mixed an
enthusiasm for sex, fun and fashion with editorial issues such as gender
equality, contraception, and racism in a way that challenged the idea of
what a woman’s magazine ‘should’ be. Alongside the importance of its
editorial legacy Nova is now seen as a style bible for a new generation of
designers, stylists and musicians.
Alice Beard is a researcher interested in talking to readers of the
magazine for an oral history project culminating in a sound installation
and exhibition at the Women’s Library, London Metropolitan University in
2006. What are your own memories of Nova? How was it different from other
women’s magazines of the time? Did you feel you were the ‘new kind of
woman’ Nova made its appeal to? If you would like to take part in this
oral history project, you can find an online questionnaire on The Women’s
Library website, at www.thewomenslibrary.ac.uk.
For further PRESS information, images or to arrange an interview please
contact:
Fiona Moorhead, Marketing & Press Manager on 020 7320 3503 or by email
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Alice Beard
Senior Lecturer, Contextual Studies
Faculty of Fashion & Communication
The Surrey Institute of Art and Design University College
Epsom Campus, Ashley Road
Epsom, Surrey KT18 5BE
Tel: 01372 202427
Fax 01372 747050
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www.surrart.ac.uk
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