Abstract
Covers of fashion magazines are part of the media that reflects the zeitgeist. Thus an analysis of the covers is a tool to probe the social and cultural changes of a period. This study attempts to shed light on the changes of the image of women on the cover of men's fashion magazines; this study intends to investigate the changes of status and role of women, from the past up to the present, through analyzing the meaning of the image of female models. For this purpose, this study conducts both literature and corroborative research. The period for the analysis is limited to post-1960s when female models began to appear alone on the cover of men's fashion magazine. The three decades from the 1960s through today have been analyzed according to its characteristics. The result is as follows: female models in the 1960s were shown as subjugated and ancillary to men as a commodity for the affluent materialistic civilization after World War II. In the 1970s, thanks to feminism movement, the image of resistance dominated. As a result of women's right movement, the 1980s came to witness the female image of subjective characteristics. Finally, starting in the 1990s, a mixture of subjugated, resistant, and subjective image of female models has appeared. In the contemporary culture, where the communication through images is being increased, the image of the female models in fashion magazines could work as a criterion to measure the social change.
