Description
Collector's Note – Why This Issue Matters
September 1979 is one of the most editorially significant dates in the Seventeen Magazine annual calendar, and this issue delivers on the promise of that designation with unusual completeness. The September back-to-school edition was Seventeen's most commercially and editorially ambitious issue of the year — the equivalent of Vogue's September in its relative importance to the publication's annual cycle — and a September 1979 edition captures the magazine at the precise intersection of the late-seventies aesthetic and the cultural forces that would reshape American teenage life through the following decade. The fall fashion coverage documented here — "Fashion Sense: Test Yours Against the Pros," sweater dressing, coat notes, and the DIY instant accessories — reflects the specific stylistic moment of 1979 fall fashion, when the decade's more fluid and earthy aesthetic was beginning to give way to the sharper silhouettes and more self-conscious styling that would define the early eighties. For collectors building an archive of Seventeen Magazine issues from the late seventies, this September 1979 edition is among the most content-rich and thoroughly documented entries in the catalog — a comprehensive primary source of the magazine's editorial identity at its late-decade peak, preserved with an unusually complete table of contents that allows precise bibliographic identification of every feature.
The "Test Your Fashion Savvy" interactive feature that gives this issue its cover identity is a particularly interesting artifact of late-seventies fashion magazine pedagogy. Seventeen's educational approach to fashion — the idea that style knowledge was something that could be tested, measured, and improved rather than simply absorbed through exposure — was one of the magazine's most consistent and distinctive editorial commitments, and an interactive fashion quiz presented as the September issue's primary identity is a document of that commitment at its most fully expressed. The framing "Against the Pros" positioned Seventeen's readership as aspirants to a form of expertise that was learnable and assessable, which was itself an editorial argument about the nature of fashion knowledge and the capacity of teenage readers to develop genuine taste rather than simply follow trends. That argument — fashion as a skill to be developed rather than a social code to be decoded — reflects specific cultural assumptions about teenage female intelligence and agency that are worth examining as primary source material for researchers studying the history of women's and teen media. Collectors researching fashion and teen magazines from 1979 will find this issue a well-documented and editorially coherent primary source of that specific pedagogical tradition at its most confident late-seventies expression.
The supporting content documented in the listing's table of contents adds further layers of cultural and historical interest. The "Hot Rock" music feature by Edwin Miller engages the specific popular music landscape of fall 1979 — a period of considerable musical diversity and transition, with disco's commercial dominance beginning to generate the backlash that would reshape American radio within the year. "The Great Roller Revolution" sports feature by Gloria D. Miklowitz documents the rollerskating craze that was genuinely ubiquitous in American youth culture in 1979, driven by the Skating Rink phenomenon and the disco-skating connection that made it one of the more specifically dateable cultural moments of the late seventies. The careers feature "Paid to Pick Clothes" — a profile of fashion work as a viable career path for young women — reflects the decade's expanding framework for female professional ambition in aesthetically driven fields. The "Kitchenless Cookery" food feature anticipates the practical independence cooking advice that would characterize teen and young women's magazines through the following decade. Taken together, the documented contents constitute a remarkably complete cross-section of what Seventeen believed its readers needed to know, aspire to, and enjoy in the fall of 1979.
About the Publication
Seventeen Magazine was founded in 1944 and by September 1979 had sustained thirty-five years as the dominant American magazine publication aimed at teenage girls. Its editorial format balanced fashion and beauty coverage with features on relationships, school, career aspirations, health, and the cultural questions most immediately relevant to its adolescent readership — a combination that gave it a breadth and authority no competitor fully matched during its peak decades. The September issue in particular had become Seventeen's most elaborately produced annual edition, with expanded fashion coverage, heightened editorial ambition, and the kind of comprehensive back-to-school content that addressed its readership's annual transition from summer to school year with both practical utility and genuine cultural intelligence. By 1979 the magazine had been navigating the specific concerns of teenage American girls for three and a half decades, and its September editions represent the fullest annual expression of its editorial understanding of that readership — making the September 1979 edition, with its documented and complete table of contents, an unusually research-accessible primary source for that institutional knowledge.
Key Highlights Inside
- "Fashion Sense: Test Yours Against the Pros" interactive feature on page 121 — the cover story and editorial centerpiece of the issue, representing Seventeen's approach to fashion education as an assessable skill rather than an innate quality, and documenting the specific late-seventies fall fashion landscape through the lens of an interactive challenge that positioned readers as aspirant fashion experts capable of developing genuine aesthetic judgment.
- Comprehensive fall fashion editorial spanning "Top It All Off" (p.18), "It's in the Bag" (p.26), "Sweater Dressing" (p.132), "Coat Notes" (p.136), "Quick Changes" (p.154), "3 Easy Pieces" (p.156), and "Instant Accessories" (p.158) — a detailed primary source record of 1979 fall teen fashion across every category from headwear to outerwear to accessories, documented with the page-level specificity that makes the full table of contents an unusually complete fashion historical resource.
- "Hot Rock" music feature by Edwin Miller on page 130 — an engagement with the specific popular music landscape of fall 1979, a moment of genuine transition in American popular music when disco's commercial dominance was generating the backlash that would reshape radio, and the broader rock and pop landscape was producing some of its most commercially and culturally significant releases of the decade.
- "The Great Roller Revolution" sports feature by Gloria D. Miklowitz on page 30 — a primary source document of the rollerskating craze at its peak cultural moment in American youth life, capturing one of the more specifically dateable cultural phenomena of the late seventies at the precise season of its greatest mainstream visibility.
- Careers feature "Paid to Pick Clothes" by Mary Elaine Lora on page 22, "How to Be Happy" by Eric K. Goodman on page 140, "First-Rate Tips to Conquer First-Date Jitters" on page 128, and "Wise and Wonderful Things to Learn from 'Older' Parents" on page 144 — the full personal development and lifestyle editorial architecture of a September Seventeen, documented with attribution and page specificity across multiple contributors and addressing the relational, professional, and psychological concerns of its readership with the directness and seriousness that distinguished the magazine at its editorial best.
- Fiction by Ruth Unrau ("Romance on a Rainy Afternoon," p.142), poetry across three sections (pp.34, 112, 192), and food and living content including "Kitchenless Cookery" (p.28) and "Room Accents on the Quick" (p.162) — the complete literary and domestic editorial architecture of a late-seventies September Seventeen, representing the full range of the publication's editorial ambition across fashion, fiction, beauty, food, and lifestyle in a single comprehensive issue.
Condition & Rarity
Seventeen Magazine September issues from 1979 present a specific condition profile — these were the year's largest and most content-dense editions, their expanded page counts placing additional stress on the spine and binding relative to standard monthly issues, and their back-to-school identity making them both the most actively read and the most frequently cited issues of the year. Very Good condition with minor edge wear is an honest and strong grade for a forty-six-year-old September fashion magazine, indicating a copy that retains full structural integrity, displays cleanly, and shows no significant cover damage or interior page loss beyond the minimal evidence of its age. The absence of a mailing label is a meaningful condition attribute that preserves the full cover design without adhesive damage, identifying this as a newsstand copy and distinguishing it from the subscriber examples that constitute the majority of surviving Seventeen issues from any year — particularly significant for a September edition whose cover design was the primary retail selling point on the newsstand and whose visual integrity is the first condition attribute serious collectors assess. The plastic protective sleeve provides ongoing archival protection. Collectors evaluating surviving examples of this issue should prioritize cover surface quality and spine integrity as primary condition criteria, and treat the completeness of the documented interior content — particularly the fashion editorial sections and the careers and music features — as the secondary criteria most relevant to the issue's research utility.
Looking for More Issues Like This?
A Very Good newsstand copy of Seventeen's September 1979 edition with the "Test Your Fashion Savvy" cover, a fully documented table of contents, and confirmed label-free provenance is one of the more specifically valuable entries in the late-seventies Seventeen catalog — September issues in strong condition with comprehensive content documentation are consistently among the most actively sought entries in the magazine's back-issue market, and this issue's combination of interactive fashion editorial, music coverage, and the rollerskating cultural moment documentation gives it a historical richness that rewards serious collector attention. If this issue is no longer available, the full Seventeen Magazine collection at OriginalMagazines.com is the most comprehensive place to browse surviving issues from across the publication's history and locate other late-seventies September editions, notable fashion features, or specific years from the magazine's most editorially ambitious decades. The 1979 magazine collection brings together issues from across that year's major publications for collectors interested in the full fashion and cultural landscape of the final year of a decade that remains one of the richest in American teen magazine history.