Lifestyle, nostalgia, and serial storytelling in the <i>Southern Living</i> South

This article analyzes Southern Living magazine's (1966-) growth into a total lifestyle brand across numerous media platforms. The magazine and its transmedia extensions have shaped southern lifestyle culture from the late 1960s on, curating a version of the region sourced from iconography of the Old South. The Southern Living Inspired Communities Project, consisting of neighborhoods chosen by the brand as the best places to live southern launched in 2014. I take Habersham, an Inspired Community near Beaufort, South Carolina as a case study to analyze attempts to capture southern living through architectural styles and lifestyle culture provided by the Southern Living total lifestyle brand. The use of antebellum aesthetics and ideologies guide the brand's preservation of a traditional South in the face of ongoing modernization and Americanization.