The cover of Elle Australia is a mirror to celebrate every woman

 By 
Hayley Wilbur
 on 
Original image replaced with Mashable logo
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

The October issue of Elle Australia is letting readers join the ranks of previous cover stars Taylor Swift, Kim Kardashian and Rebel Wilson by having a mirror on the cover.

Below the mirror, or mirror-like material, is the hashtag "BeTheCover" along with the statement "to celebrate our epic portrait of what it means to be a woman."

[seealso URL="http://sale-online.click/2015/07/31/celebrities-dress-history/"]

Original image replaced with Mashable logo
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

Instead of a cover story, the magazine profiled 47 women of all different ages including 2013 Australian of the Year Ita Buttrose, politician Julie Bishop and model with Down syndrome Madeline Stuart, according to Buzzfeed.

"This month ELLE celebrates the incredible complexity of womanhood with a ground-breaking portrait exploring the hopes, dreams and challenges of being an Australian woman and girl in 2015," the magazine's Facebook states.

Most perfect cover. Well done @elleaus #bethecover #elleaus A photo posted by @theadornment on Sep 21, 2015 at 2:47am PDT

"We're varied, complex creatures, a fact ignored by the little labels the world loves to put on us: career women, working mums, stay-at-home mums, sluts, basic bitches, feminists, Gillian Flynn's 'cool girls' -- the list of boxes we're so often and easily lumped into is long and limiting," Elle explains on its website.

Elle Australia encouraged readers to take photos of themselves "on the cover" and post to their social media -- and many have.

I have this cute little troll on Twitter who likes to tell me that my ed's letters are too long and too self-indulgent. Pretty sure she'll self-combust when she sees the extreme lengths I was prepared to go to in order to put myself on the cover via the new issue of #elleaus, on sale tomorrow #bethecover #loveyourtroll (and a big shout out and thanks to @susanabarbosa x) A photo posted by Justine Cullen (@justine_cullen) on Sep 20, 2015 at 3:59am PDT

SYDNEY-LA-TORONTO ✈️ #bethecover #travel #tour A photo posted by Natasia Petracic. (@npetracic) on Sep 21, 2015 at 8:54am PDT

#BeTheCover - Congratulations @elleaus and @justine_cullen on a fabulous cover! We love it x #elleaus #WeAreWomen A photo posted by NAC Media Group (@nacmediagroup) on Sep 21, 2015 at 12:49am PDT

While the mirror itself doesn't necessarily work that well, Elle is proving that a magazine doesn't always need a perfect, air-brushed celebrity to front its brand. Redbook magazine recently was celebrated for putting "real" non-celebrity women on the cover of their September issue.

With many September issues not including any plus-size models, it's time that magazines set realistic and attainable standards.

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