By Jessica Martin.
As Lisa Wilkinson, Cleo's editor between 1984 and 1994, writes at the Huffington Post: "At your best, you were fun, informative, lusty and liberating, and several generations of Australian women are in your debt." I believe it.
From 2009 to 2013, Cleo went through several big redesigns. By the time I started working there, the rumours that it was about to fold were already becoming louder than whispers.
A friend of mine, an editor at ACP, actually advised me not to take the job, or at the very least ask for more money. I obviously ignored the former, but having worked up the courage to ask for a measly $3,000 more in salary, I very comfortably lived well outside my means for the next, well... it's still happening.
Cleo editors experimented with more sex, less sex
Every redesign held the promise of a fresh start for Cleo. My favourite was under Sarah Oakes - the team and the greater magazine and fashion industries loved what she and art director Liz North created, but Cleo's publishers thought it was "too cool", and little by little, we had to rein it in again.
Some editors experimented with more sex, some less. Some went for indie actresses on the cover to try to incite a different audience. Some went even more mainstream.
We were told we needed to write for a younger audience, and then an older one. We were given market research about just who exactly our readership was - I don't think it's a coincidence that I can't remember - but the sad reality was magazines, for a plethora of reasons (not least because of the media's shift to online publishing), just weren't as relevant to young women as they used to be.
Where online publications were breaking new ground - having important, of-the-moment conversations about politics, race, gender and sexuality - women's magazines lagged behind.
Cleo staff proud to be part of Australian history
The vast majority of the staff I worked with during my time at Cleo were proud to be a part of Australian history. We truly loved our magazine, and its scandalous beginnings were boastful lore - what a time 1972 was to be alive! We tried - and I know the staff there still try - to produce something young women wanted to immerse themselves in.
Our monthly features meetings were akin to therapy sessions. Our writing team knew everything (everything!) about the issues we had with our friends, housemates, parents and partners. We thought that if we were going through these things, surely other young women were, too.
When then-editor Sharri Markson gave me my own sex and relationships column in 2013, I felt lucky to be able to write openly and frankly about my dating trials and tribulations, successes and (epic) failures.
The columns that attracted the most reader feedback were always the ones in which I was unabashedly honest about how difficult being a woman navigating life and love can often be.
No matter how much content we can lose ourselves in online, we still want to feel like we're normal; that we're not alone in feeling what we feel. The best writing, and the best publications, do that.
If anything, Cleo could have pushed the envelope even further these last few years, and become even more inclusive of a generation of people who are bucking gender and sexuality norms, and who want their voices heard.
Young women today are incredibly socially aware. Why, when they have the internet at their fingertips, would they pay $7 to read only about white, straight women? But then, of course, there are the advertisers to please.
So maybe the time is right to let Cleo go. It's held on for so long, and without a more comprehensive digital strategy, I don't see how Bauer can turn it around.
It's sad, of course it is, for both personal and historical reasons, but just because it's gone doesn't mean it's not still iconic.