The July issue of ELLE, on sale May 30, will be the first time Beckham has ever appeared on the cover of a women’s glossy fashion magazine, says Hearst. ELLE, which usually has female celebrities and models on its covers, has broken with tradition in a fashionable nod to the Olympic Games by featuring a global icon famous for both his style and athletic prowess.
The issue will be available to subscribers on May 28 while the general public will have to wait until May 30 to buy a copy on the newsstand.
Usually a fiercely guarded secret among glossy magazines, ELLE has not only announced the identity of its cover star ahead of publication, but also gave its Twitter followers exclusive access to the Beckham cover shoot last Tuesday when it streamed live behind-the-scenes stills from the Beckham cover shoot in Los Angeles via Twitter @ELLEuk, #BeckhamELLE, and online – www.elleuk.com.
David Beckham has described his unprecedented cover shoot for ELLE as “really exciting. ELLE is a prestigious magazine with international recognition. I'm honoured to have been asked to be the first ever solo male fashion cover."
ELLE’s Editor-in-Chief Lorraine Candy, says: “David Beckham is a national hero, so we saw an opportunity to shoot a celebratory cover to support an historical and patriotic year. He is an icon and ELLE is known for featuring icons on its cover. This is a first for us on the newsstand and I believe he is loved by men and women alike. Anyway, who doesn't want to see a picture of one of the world's most handsome men on the front cover of a magazine? It will be a collector’s issue.”
ELLE UK has never had a solo male cover star on newsstand before although there have been various celebrity ‘couplings’ on the covers including Kate Moss and Paul Weller in February 1997; Ewan McGregor and Renee Zellweger in January 2001, and Nicole Appleton and Liam Gallagher in November 2003.
This is the second time ELLE has broken with tradition by revealing the identity of its cover star ahead of publication. Last month via Twitter, ELLE announced Kristen Stewart as the star of its June issue.
#KristenELLE was the world’s number one trending topic on Twitter and the initiative generated so much excitement that ELLEuk.com had the highest site traffic figure in over two years, surpassing even traffic visits for ELLEuk.com’s Royal Wedding coverage, with a 231% increase in global unique users, and a 218% page views percentage increase of traffic from Twitter and Facebook. According to Hearst, Magazine subscriptions doubled as readers signed up for Kristen Stewart’s special subscriber’s issue.
