Friday, 3 July 2009

GWAS Playlist

This week's playful pick of pop culture, magazine & pretty things...

1. Ironic (in the most unfortunate way) that Heath Ledger should appear on the August cover of Vanity Fair in the same week that a posthumous Michael Jackson is on the cover of every weekly mag on the stand. Two men of immense talent; two tortured private lives; two tragic, untimely deaths. The Vanity Fair cover is accompanied by an exploratory essay, "The Last of Heath", by Peter Biskind: "In his article, Biskind explores Ledger’s final movie role, his uncertainty about Hollywood, his devotion to his young daughter, and what happened in the days and weeks leading up to his death as he battled chronic insomnia, pneumonia, and exhaustion." Some extracts are available to read online.

2. Vibe magazine, the urban music title founded by Michael Jackson's one-time producer Quincy Jones in association with Time Inc. in 1993, has folded with Vibe Media Group CEO Steve Aaron citing a "lack of financial investments", the collapse of the financial market and the slump in print advertising for the closure. It is uncertain whether the title will maintain an online presence. Music site NME has suggested Jones may try to "save Vibe": "We gotta get into the 21st century you know," Jones said. "Print and all that stuff is over, we gotta remember that. They're over the same way as the record business. We have got to get into this century."

3. I adore Mandy Moore. She seems like the wholesome, down-to-earth kind of girl you could share a coffee and a cookie with and come away feeling good about yourself despite her obvious gorgeousness. Perhaps it's her knack for self-deprecation? Or maybe her reluctance to submit to LA's size-0 standards? Anyway, she further endears me with her thoughts on marriage and contentment, which she discusses with U.S. Women's Health: "I didn’t know if marriage was something that was super important to me. I thought, maybe I don’t need that in my life. I didn’t take the decision (to get married) lightly. I ventured into it realistically. But life takes you places you wouldn’t have expected. I’m really content with what was in the cards for me."

4.
Astute businesswoman Ashley Olsen, 23, tells HAMPTONS magazine: “I wear The Row every day. I’m able to create clothes that I love and that other people love too…I really just love my job... People think they can define a brand by just a name, but the product has to speak for itself. It doesn’t really matter whose name is on it. That’s the truth.” (Source: JustJared)

5. Marieke Hardy has labelled 10 Years Younger in 10 Days a piece of "cold hearted and vile" television programming, writing for SMH: "The premise — if you were lucky enough to miss the entire series before its timely and thankful demise last Wednesday — was simple enough: find an ordinary pair of Australians and, over the course of 10 fun-filled days, with the help of a team of kindly "industry specialists", make them feel inadequate, repulsive and negatively judged by the general public before moulding them into some kind of rigid, stitched-up plastic mannequin whose very perma-grinning existence validates every hateful, self-serving myth the beauty industry has ever dished up to a salivating race of human beings terrified of nature's ineluctable creep." Sounds sort of like the TV version of Anna Wintour's Vogue, what with its predilection for shaping up its photographic subjects (Oprah, the Rodarte sisters, Adele) before they're fit for print. We don't want ugly people running about the place, after all.

6. Also saving the world one ugly, unfashionable person at a time is Rachel Zoe, who is doing a Gwyneth and starting her own weekly newsletter, The Zoe Report, to coincide with the second season of The Rachel Zoe Project. The Report promises to give us a "chic variety of accessories, apparel and other items carefully chosen by Rachel Zoe and her editorial team of fashion addicts - ahem - experts". Funding for Zoe's "shoe dependency" will come via paid dedicated emails. Like Gwyneth, you can bet she'll have her fair share of haters, but you can bet people will eat this newsletter up like canapes at cocktail hour.

7. While The Zoe Report will undoubtedly spawn a new breed of itty-bitty Zoebots, Real magazine, published by Inspired Girl Productions and supported by The Butterfly Foundation, Libra and Edge, aims to "inspire creativity and positive thinking, promote self respect and encourage readers to embrace their individuality". Editor Erin Young writes, "Each day we are bombarded with messages implying that beauty and appearance should be the most important thing in our lives. Beauty is only skin deep...it is glamour that lasts forever and glamour comes from within!" Sounds like an unreal editorial philosophy to me. Subscribing immediately!

8. Further adding to the unique voice collective, young freelance journalist Sarah Ayoub has a new blog aimed at writers called Wordsmith Lane. Ayoub's postings include interviews with fellow writers, notes on pitching stories, a paean to Women's Health magazine and a personal account of her transition from student to ad-exec-made-redundant to writer/blogger.

9. It's been a big week of lists for Forbes who has published the World's 10 Most Stylish Cities (in ascending order: Barcelona, San Francisco, Madrid, Tokyo, LA, Rome, London, New York, Milan, Paris) in addition to its Celebrity 100.

10. Woman's Day editorial director Alana House, who has returned to the title she once edited to support editor Fiona Connolly (formerly of the Telegraph's Sydney Confidential section ), has told Mediaweek magazine: "She has amazing news abilities. Together it's going to be an amazing partnership... While Fiona really beefs up that front of the book, I'm going to concentrate on making the lifestyle section have much more of a weekly buzz about it...Because we are a weekly magazine, you can never just sit back and be complacent. You always need to be jumping on things." House says the magazine will focus on delivering the best weekly coverage of fashion, beauty and food, as well as including more local content: "I see no reason why the Australian celebrities aren't just as exciting to our readers as the Hollywood ones...We have lots of plans to make sure we have the very latest Hollywood news, while still giving our readers the local stuff."

Mag Tweet of the Week: "Sienna Miller. Am I the only one that likes her? Husband stealer or style icon? Tabloid or covergirl?" @PaulaJoye (editor, madison magazine)
Reply: "Sienna Miller is the rice cakes of mag covers - totally bland. Allure mag does the stylish but interesting celeb cover best." @NatWebster

The Word for the Weekend: "To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven." Ecclesiastes 3:1

Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel

Mags: Who's MJ coverage

While the U.S. edition of OK! magazine has published Michael's death bed picture on its latest cover (alongside sympathetic coverline "Michael's Tragic Death, Why he didn't have to die", as if to soften the blow), Who magazine has published a picture of him and his children on its cover, along with a 45-page tribute special with a flip cover...

I'm in two minds about the family portrait cover. Although it's clearly an approved publicity shot, and his children are as much a part of his legacy as his music, I'm not entirely comfortable with the idea that these kids, their little faces etched into our collective consciousness, will forever be plagued by media attention. It's an issue that reached fever pitch on Mamamia this week.

Perhaps it's inevitable, as with, say, Lisa Marie Presley and other progeny whose famous (or more famous) parent has passed away, that we will be interested in their lives (personally, I'm not interested in Jackson's kids at all, so long as their welfare is being looked after). Headlines about custody battles circulated as fast as the discussion about the pain killers that numbed his humanity. Maybe I'm uncomfortable because his own children symbolise his warped relationship with the other kids in his life. But I do think editors have some sort of responsibility towards these children, and the children of other celebrities, just as the celebrities themselves should be protective of how the media world "consumes" their little ones. Some celebrities are good at it (Sarah Jessica Parker and Kate Winslet for instance) and some are crap (no name calling necessary).

On a lighter note, this flatplanning decision by Who editor Nicky Briger, who's placed a shot of a young Michael Jackson next to ad for ck one (tagline: "for all for ever"), is genius. One thing's for sure, Jackson's death, like the Obama victory, Princess Diana's untimely death and September 11, has united us all in some way or other, whether that be in appreciation of his music or heated discussion about his private life.

The spread had me recalling "We Are The One", the 80s hit sung by Jackson, Tina Turner, Lionel Richie, Cyndi Lauper, Diana Ross, Dionna Warwick, Kenny Rogers, Paul Simon, Billy Joel, Willie Nelson, Al Jarreau, Bob Geldof, James Ingram, Steve Perry, Daryl Hall, Huey Lewis, Kim Carnes and Bruce Springsteen (who am I forgetting?!) in aid of the USA for Africa campaign...



Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel

Thursday, 2 July 2009

Pretty: Cute & Chic This Week

Nary an LBD in sight as the stars shrug of recessionary dressing in favour of something light and frivolous for summer complete with heels that make you go 'hmm' (all the way to the bathroom to affix Band-Aids to blisters: something I don't miss about summer dressing as I sit here in my chunky wool socks and comfy boots).

Cue Tyra, Cheryl, Leighton, Kylie, Isabel and Beyonce looking frock-fabulous...

On the more casual celebrity dressing front, Aussies Isabel and Isla work 'Cute & Chic' best in their summery ensembles (though Isla's outfit-obscuring black bag looks like an oversized sartorial anachronism right now), while Leighton, Jess and Gisele revert to trusty denims...

Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel

Mags: Vogue.com.au editor talks tech (no uglies allowed)

It's not The September Issue, but herewith a quick glimpse at Vogue.com.au editor Damien Woolnough talking up the iPhone and other tech applications for Optus (free PR, whee!). What think you of his quip about Vogue saving people from looking ugly? Is that a bit vulgar? Is that Vogue's secret mission statement (with the addition of "and fat" perhaps?). It's a Voguey day today...



Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel

Mags: A Paris Match made in heaven

I'm late to the blog with this one, but I adore this fashion editorial from the June edition of Vogue Australia and therefore deem it worthy of posting even after its used-by-date. Do great fashion editorials even have a used-by date? I think not. Maybe I will share some of my other retro faves with you?

Enjoy 'Paris Match', shot by Max Doyle and styled by Meg Gray. Talk about joie de vivre!












Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel

Mags: Teen queens cross over

Nineteen-year-old teen queens Emma Watson and Taylor Swift get sexy for for August issues of U.K. ELLE and U.S. GLAMOUR while simultaneously sweetening up for Teen Vogue and Girlfriend...

Okay, I'm mildly disturbed by the ELLE cover and its just-rolled-out-of-the-sack, spread-legged styling, but maybe that's just me being a Prudy Judy?

There's nothing new about teen stars "coming of age" via vamped up glossy images (Britney, Miley Cyrus, Nikki Webster anyone?) but it's a shame to see Emma in particular playing into the raunch culture cliche of good-girl-turned-sex-kitten in corset, signature Kate Moss smokey eye makeup and tousled bed head (she also did a provocative cover for Interview magazine).

Sure, she's an adult but in these post-Paris Hilton/post-Pussycat Dolls/post-Bratz/post-Sex and the City days, does the cultural marker for feminine maturity still equal sexual objectification of the body beautiful? Is "raunch culture" still alive and kicking?

When I interviewed him for a story about Disney girls for Cosmo (I know, ironic given Cosmo, the Samantha Jones of mags, has spearheaded female sexual empowerment), social commentator and author of The Truth About Paris, Mark Sayers had this to say:
"As you move out of your tweens into your teens and into your twenties, the Disney princess myth does not sell as well. Sadly the industry seems only have one real play here, to turn you from the nice girl next door, into the sexy bad girl. This PR move is becoming almost obligatory."

By continuing to play to type, we're just reinforcing the gender stereotype that says for a woman to be desirable, lovable even, she must look and act sexy. Girl-next-door sweetness, quirky cuteness, nurturing generosity, unbridled creativity, geeky intellectualism, career driven success – all attractive qualities, and perhaps cliches, in their own rights – barely get a look in. Even Drew Barrymore, the queen of cuteness and owner of her own film production company, plays the glamour role on the red carpet and vamps it up for the magazines. While we should be free to play all the aforementioned roles, female stars, it seems, are ultimately subservient to the mighty power of sex. Or so the Hollywood big-wigs and publishers would have us believe.

So long as we're producing glossy images like Watson's for girls to consume, getting your sexy on will be seen as simply par for the course on the road to womanhood. I'm not suggesting that we all revert to playing Barbies, plaiting each other's hair, wearing pink, baking cupcakes and selling cookies at old people's homes, but surely there's an alternative female narrative that needs an airing? One where the central character keeps her clothes on.

Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel

Wednesday, 1 July 2009

Pretty: Helena Bonham Carter love

She's the antithesis of the glamorous Hollywood celebrity: a crazy cupcake with a cherry on top. But at least her sartorial eccentricity doesn't bore us to death. Helena, 43, is one of a kind. And daughter Nell (who looks as edible as a cupcake: Hansel and Gretel, eat your gingerbread hearts out) looks set to follow in her rubber shoe-clad footsteps.

Helena will play the Red Queen, opposite Johnny Depp's Mad Hatter, in her husband Tim Burton's adaptation of Alice in Wonderland. Yippee! Dear LOVE magazine, please consider Helena for an upcoming cover. You know you want to.

Pics: dailymail

Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel

Cover Talk: Glossy cover love (first half 2009)

As the first of the August issues hit the newsstands and we greet a new financial year with lip-biting trepidation (how will the glossies fare?), a moment to reflect on some of the covers that have impressed in 2009.

Art direction, photography, fonts, styling, makeup (or lack thereof), subject choice, coverlines... aesthetics meet creativity meet the feminine/pop cultural Zeitgeist as the glossies vie for attention with covers to make us swoon, causing us to dip into our purses and pockets and satchels in a search for spare change.

Drum roll, please, for the GWAS Top 21 covers of 2009 (thus far)...











And, of course, we can't forget LOVE's "grande" debut with one of the defining covers of the year, which makes 21...

View Girl With a Satchel's "Best (& Worst) Covers of 2008" here.

Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel