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Holly Peers on the Cover of Loaded

Holly Peers lands the cover of Loaded, the British men’s monthly that helped define lads’-mag culture.

Loaded launched in the mid-1990s and set the tone for a whole generation of British men’s magazines: irreverent, funny, and built around a glamour cover that had to work on a crowded newsagent’s shelf. By the time Holly Peers appeared on the front, the title was competing with the weeklies Nuts and Zoo as well as with the internet, and the cover star mattered more than ever.

What goes into a cover

A cover is the hardest single picture in any issue. It has to read clearly at small size, leave space for the masthead and the coverlines, and still feel personal enough to make someone stop and pick the magazine up. Cover shoots therefore tend to be tightly planned: a simple background, a strong colour or two, and a pose that faces the reader directly. The inside pages of the same shoot are where the photographer can relax, with wider frames, different wardrobe and more movement.

Monthly titles such as Loaded also had more time than the weeklies to build a feature around their cover star, which usually meant a longer spread and a few lines of light-hearted copy to go with it.

A milestone for the model

For anyone working in UK glamour at the time, a Loaded cover was one of the recognisable markers of having made it. Holly Peers’ appearance sits alongside her calendar and group-shoot work from the same period as part of a very visible run.

The cover and the photographs belong to the publisher and are not reproduced on this page.

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