Urbanette® Magazine was officially launched in 1994 by Hilary Rowland when she was a young girl living in rural Canada, with an affinity obsession for magazines.
Chronological History:
1994 – The magazine is started over summer holidays, with articles written by Hilary Rowland, mostly about body image, on BHI/GeoCities (a simple website host that was bought by Yahoo in 2009 and shut down). Back then it was called “My Magazine”.
1995 – The magazine is launched at its own domain name, renamed to “HILARY Magazine”, and removed from GeoCities. Articles (written by Hilary) are published on a regular schedule, and are print-magazine style. Hilary lands her first in-person A-list interview: Hilary Swank.
As a side note, this is also the year that Hilary founded New Faces®, the world’s second job search website (after Monster.com), the first online portfolio site of any kind, and the first time casting was done online. (She has since sold the company.)
1997 – The magazine starts publishing articles by other writers. At this time, Hilary was also running a web development company (with clients such as the Canadian Government) called “Hilary Interactive”.
2005 – The magazine gets a major re-design. No more white and airy!
2006 – Hilary moves her offices from Toronto to NYC’s West Village.
2009 – Hilary starts Project Migration, one of the very first social enterprises in history, and runs it alongside the magazine, out of a loft in NYC’s SoHo. Sting and others become public supporters.
2010 – HILARY Magazine is renamed to Urbanette Magazine and gets a new website design (as always, designed by Hilary, whose tastes are constantly evolving). She adds a NYC/Hamptons section.
2012 – Urbanette Magazine becomes the first magazine to be 100% volunteer and give 100% to charity. Officially, a “social enterprise”. Hilary meets her husband, gets engaged in a month, and married soon thereafter.
2013 – Hilary learns print design and Urbanette Magazine publishes its first physical print issue: the ‘Bridal & Love’ issue.
2013 & 2014 – Hilary gets cancer and is forced to prioritize her health by completely relinquishing control of her other businesses (but still collect passive income), and shuttering Project Migration. Until now, she had been running several businesses alongside Urbanette, dividing her time between them. But now, she decides to free up her time and focus her efforts on learning about health and growing Urbanette.
2015 – Hilary is still recovering, having become a healthy lifestyle expert in the process, and learns how important it is to manage stress.
Hilary becomes an official “influencer” / “tastemaker” and Urbanette gets yet another web-facelift (coding and design by Hilary).
2016 – Urbanette begins to accept selected sponsorships and puts 100% of the profits in a fund which is used to help empower women in developing countries become self-sustaining entrepreneurs through micro-loans. Hilary moves from NYC to France.
2017 – Hilary invents a distinct new way of post-processing photographs for Urbanette, and starts the process to register a design patent. Urbanette’s design is further refined by Hilary:
2018 – Hilary moves to Monte Carlo, Monaco.
Here’s Hilary Rowland, the founder’s story, in her words:
During summer holidays in 1994 I began writing articles and posting them on a very basic website, with the intention of someday having a real print magazine. In early 1995 I realized that the web would play a big part in the future of publishing, and I launched my articles at my own domain name. I programmed everything myself in HTML, and I used photo software to make all the graphics and mock-up covers (complete with fake bar-codes LOL).
It was the first online magazine, and I called it HILARY Magazine (mostly because I was reading Jane, Marie Claire, etc. and since I was the only writer at the time, it seemed to make sense). It’s since been re-named to Urbanette Magazine, which I like much better.
Both as a teenager and now, I was frustrated by superficial print magazines that were crammed with advertorials and articles that make women feel like they need to look a specific way to be attractive or have value as a person. The primary goal of the magazine has always been to publish articles (on body image, culture, etc.) that are not only interesting, but that also benefit the reader in some way. We publish articles about body image, the over-sexualization and objectification of women in our culture, conscious living and how the media affects women. Through these articles, we help our readers adopt a healthy and accepting outlook on women and themselves.
I’m very proud of the magazine because of what it stands for, and the fact that it was the first and there’s still nothing out there quite like it.
xo Hilary
Want more? Read more about Hilary Rowland or connect with her on Instagram
Thank you founder Hilary Rowland for bringing us Urbanette. It’s a great and educated platform to voice out women’s concerns.
I agree that there’s nothing like Urbanette out there. I love that it empowers every woman out there, no matter what age, size and color. I’ve learned to love myself more because of this magazine. My favorite would be the articles that talked about breaking glass ceilings and inspiring interviews about women being successful in their field. I think we all need a “woman” who understands it all, and it’s “Hilary Rowland”. I’m very proud of you too, even though you don’t know me. I’m sure a lot of your readers are happy for you! ❤️
Love the part where she said even the fake bar codes. But seriously, it’s not bad to dream of something because it can serve as your goal and it really can happen. ?
So happy for Hilary Rowland and Urbanette. She’s been doing a great job in delivering all these amazing and informative articles to us for so many years.
I love the changes that Urbanette had. I think it’s in its best state at the moment.
It’s nice to look into your favorite magazine/blog’s history. I feel like I also achieved something even though it isn’t mine. Is that just me?! ?
I actually really like the name Urbanette. Don’t get me wrong, Hilary Magazine is good, your name is very pretty, but there’s something about the name Urbanette that makes it easier to recall. It makes you love being an URBANETTE reader. It’s very feminine and hip, I don’t think the word will ever get old. I’m glad you renamed it, because I love it! I would love to always support your magazine in its every milestone. Congratulations on all your achievements here.?
What’s great about a blog is that it’s a passive income and it just grows. The hard part is that not all blogs succeed in doing so.
I tried it once but never got around to writing frequently. It’s difficult!
HIlary really is superb. She even does her own coding! Honestly, that’s one of the difficult jobs there is. I can’t even get simple codes right. I salute you!
I think Hilary should share her cancer journey. I’ve read an article about it but it wasn’t really in-depth. It would be really inspiring if she can write something like that for us too.