The Press: 90-Day Wonder

At the unborn fashion magazine Kaleidoscope, publication day was a scant three months away. Ads were rolling in at $690 a page and up, and so was circulation at a charter rate of $18 a year. But at a point when most such “Projects X” would have gone through at least two dry runs, Kaleidoscope had not even produced a dummy. The publishers had not hired a single editorial staffer.

Last week, 90 days later, Kaleidoscope’s voluptuous maiden issue (372 high-styled pages plus a sensuous blue-green cover) appeared. Overnight the monthly became the talk of the trade. Aimed at fashion executives instead of their customers, it was a “multiple magazine” with 15 departments (for cosmetics, coats, lingerie, etc.), each with its own editorial and advertising sections.

Manhattan Adman Arthur W. Collins, 45, who thought up Kaleidoscope, left the New York Sun two years ago to turn his idea into a magazine. From such backers as Motor Heir Jack F. Chrysler, Tobacco Heir Angier Biddle Duke and Milwaukeean Joseph E. Uihlein Jr. (Schlitz beer), he got more than $500,000. But until he lured buxom Martha Stout away from the editorship of Hearst’s Junior Bazaar, Collins had no magazine.

Editor Stout, once fashion editor of Good Housekeeping, had worked on new magazines before: she was one of three researchers on year-old TIME in 1924. When Kaleidoscope first approached her, she turned it down cold “because they were attempting the impossible.” Then she decided to try the impossible. She spent her first three weeks getting together a staff, mostly from retail stores. From June 21, when the first color pictures were taken, until last week, Kaleidoscope’s Chrysler Building offices were a mad henhouse. Typical of the fast & furious work was a 24-page portfolio of Paris clothes. It was put together only four days after Fashion Editor Kay Sullivan got home from Paris, and just ten days before Kaleidoscope appeared.

With his first issue (15,000) sold out, Publisher Collins will not be able to fill any new subscriptions (now $24 a year) until January. He figures that he can add another 10,000 in a year. Then, if as many readers clamor for Kaleidoscope as expected, he will have to decide whether or not to convert his trade magazine into a high-priced competitor of Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar.