TRENDING UP: After a bruising 2009, advertisers clearly have remained cautious when it comes to spending during the first quarter of the new year — although the numbers are at least heading in the right direction. And some fashion and beauty titles even managed to post significant increases in ad pages over the first three months of last year, a period admittedly weak for most titles. Overall, ad pages rose 2.2 percent during the first quarter versus a decline of 22 percent last year, according to Media Industry Newsletter. Marie Claire led the way, with paging up almost 23 percent to 255 pages versus the first quarter of 2009. InStyle and Lucky posted increases of more than 17 percent, to 512 pages and 237 pages, respectively. Ad pages at Elle rose almost 7 percent to 452. Harper’s Bazaar gained almost 4 percent in paging to 414 and Allure was up slightly, by 1.3 percent, to 217 pages.

As for titles seeing declines, Vogue was off less than 1 percent to 559 pages; Cosmopolitan fell almost 1 percent to 289 pages; O The Oprah Magazine was down 2.7 percent to 297 pages; Glamour declined 4.7 percent to 277 pages; Town & Country declined 13 percent to 214, and W posted a 22 percent decline over last year to 250 pages. Essence fared better than some of its peers, but still declined 4.1 percent to 255 pages. Among health titles, Fitness was the only magazine to post a sizeable increase, up almost 20 percent to 238 pages. At Rodale, Women’s Health was flat compared with last year, with 111 pages. Meanwhile, Self lost 12 pages, or a little more than 5 percent, and Shape fell 4.7 percent, to 295 pages. — Amy Wicks