Inspiration, or....???

I agree. forgivable since the provenance of the idea likely stemmed from Ms. Mayhew's own portfolio during her time at RS and the inspiration is from so long ago, that new readers will have no recollection. After all, we're goldfish.

Current Woman's Day editor Elizabeth Mayhew was the style director for Real Simple during the era when that May 2003 cover was produced, and much of the magazine's visual DNA came from her talents. I guess that makes this more of a recycled cover rather than a rip-off, and a tiny bit more acceptable (just a tiny bit) creatively. But I still don't know what it says about a magazine that copies another magazine so diligently, even if they're copying a cover from eight years ago.