Young Hollywood vanity

I picked up the UK edition of Vanity Fair (September 2007) at the airport last week (who could go past that shot of Gisele and the promise of a Best-Dressed List?) and have been reading chunks of it since – Graydon Carter's editor's letters alone usually take me a bus ride to get through, as I attempt to grasp and contemplate what he's saying (usually something about how incompetent the Bush government is and what a mess Iraq has become... I wonder if he's thought to run for the top job himself?).

Of all the magazines I read, VF takes me the longest to get through (those features take some serious dedication and intellect commitment , let alone the Letters pages), and thus I'm still only 3/4 through.

So far, the most intriguing features have been 'God Bless Me, It's a Best Seller!' by Christopher Hitchens, the controversial author of God Is Not Great. We join Hitchens on his book tour, where he's greeted warmly by atheists and with caution by 'believers'. His argument is strong and well researched (he knows his Bibles as well as his Korans), which is more than most Christians can say (and some of them agree with parts of his book). Many Christians I know live blindly by faith, reaching to their Bibles for guidance in times of distress, but know little of the history of Christianity or can boast of thorough knowledge of the Bible – I'm one of them. This is not to say I'll be abandoning the journey, but it has made me aware of how important it is you know your stuff before daring to share with others. Hitchens is very likable – quips like "I have a book to sell: maybe someone up there does love me after all" suggest he's not humourless or on a mission to burst people's bubbles. In fact, he's more against organised religion than he is faith itself, which resonates with me, particularly as an educated young woman with views bordering on the feminist side. He attacks Jewish prayer, for instance, for thanking God for not making you a woman or a gentile; he gets annoyed with Catholics who don't know the difference between the Immaculate Conception and the Virgin Birth.

Now to religion of a very different kind – the celebrity worship kind. 'I'm With Her', by Nancy Jo Sales, looks at "the boys who love the girls who love the spotlight." These are the guys who date Paris, Nicole, Lindsay, et. al., and have achieved some degree of fame for doing just that – Cisco Adler, Kevin Federline and Joel Madden are amongst the crew Sales interviews for the story. It's a riveting read – a look at the complexities of Young Hollywood from a highbrow journalism perspective. The quotes from Cisco alone are gold – I find him, through reading the story, to be the most endearing of the lot. He laments his break up with Mischa Barton: "Mischa's the most beautiful girl on the planet. Sometimes I would wake up and see her on the pillow next to me and be like, Oooh, there she is... It wasn't us that broke us up, it was all the other shit." Pass the Kleenex! Sales spends time in LA hotspots Teddy's and LAX, observing the behaviour of the young starlets headed for Rehabville. Lindsay Lohan approaches her and asks who she's writing for before saying in defense of her partying: "It's just people can be so mean. See, I'm not working right now, so I'm just having fun for the next two weeks until I start working again, and things can get misconstrued and people are such liars...".

One thing's for sure, these cereal celebrity-girl daters must have massive egos or serious ulterior motives (K-Fed definitely did) 'cause dating someone whose fame and salary far exceeds yours must be terribly emasculating. Cisco, for example, while wealthy in his own right by way of birth, has failed to make it in the music biz with his band, and Pete Wentz is just as famous for dating Ashlee Simpson as he is for his music (most people think he's the lead singer of Fall Out Boy; not the bassist). Joel Madden and his relationship may be a different kettle of fish – according to someone Sales interviewed, Nicole "wouldn't date anyone just for publicity... She's very romantic. She hates to be alone. When she's with a boyfriend, she's with him. She clings to her boyfriends." Heck, if I were just a little girl in the big, bad world of Hollywood, with friends like Paris (who needs enemies?), I think I'd like someone to cling to, too. He may just be her saving grace.

Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel

A day in the life of a bodysuit...

Inspired by the latest Russh magazine (read my review below) and Amy Starr's I-can-wear-what-I-want mini skirt test-drive, I decided to take my American Apparel bodysuit ($35 @ americanapparel.com.au) for a run...

DIARY OF A BODYSUIT

6am: Right, my hair is oily, my skin is looking a bit Cameron Diaz after a night out and it's going to be at least 25 degrees today. Wearing something new will make me feel better. Perhaps my American Apparel bodysuit? Yes, that shall do the trick. I will wear it with jeans and a belt and the amazing tan Mollini wedges I found in my sister's cupboard last night. Sorted.

6.15am: Is the bodysuit work-wear appropriate? Hmm...

6.20am: Are you supposed to wear undies with it? I'm going to wear undies.

6.30am: Blimey, perhaps I should have got a larger size? I can barely get it over my thighs... ahh, there you go. Examine body in mirror. Haven't worn a leotard since 1995. Look v. different to my hip-less 14 year-old self. It fits snugly on top. Definitely cannot wear a bra. Hope it's not too cold outside. Put yellow cardigan and trench coat on over bodysuit. Kiss husband good-bye. Venture out into world.

6.45am: Waiting at bus stop, man stares at cleavage. It's a bit early for that caper, sunshine. Pull trench coat over bra-less bust.

7am: Spot stomach bulge. Perhaps it's water weight? OMG – going to the toilet is going to be a mission today! Resolve to keep tea drinking and water consumption to a minimum.

7.40am: Walk to work. Am busting to pee. Shuffle towards cubicle, throw off trench and cardigan and strip down. Feels very weird to be half-dressed in work bathroom. Not comfortable at all. I'm cold.

8.15am: Compliment from colleague. Feel better about choice of attire. Wheee!

9.05am: Shouldn't have had that cup of tea...

11am: Bathroom visits: 3. Annoyance factor: moderate. I'm getting used to the routine. Still a total pain, though.

1pm: I think that if I were wearing high-waisted jeans, rather than my standard low-rise, I'd feel more comfortable about having my stomach so closely suited. I have to suck in as I walk to lunch. Have nice thoughts about billowy smock tops.

1.30pm: One sleeve keeps slipping off as I walk around shops to find sister-in-law's birthday gift – cannot risk bare boob exposure. Adjust sleeve five times in 10 minutes. Am relieved to get back to office and resume slouchy work-desk posture. Bodysuit much more compliant now.

4pm: Am experiencing usual afternoon bloating. Must stop chewing gum – such a bad habit, really. Probably causes cancer. Or perhaps I have IBS? Whatever... I feel disgusting and the bodysuit is not sympathetic. Hate bodysuit.

5pm: Total bathroom visits: 7. I cannot wait to get this thing off.

6pm: Try to enjoy final moments in bodysuit on bus – it really is quite comfortable – and finish reading Russh.

7pm: Discard bodysuit and throw on trackies and tee. Ahhh.

Verdict: Best saved for a night out (when you're designated driver – i.e. not needing to go to the bathroom all the time) or dinner/shopping with the girls – a 10-hour working day is just not practical.

Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel

Gush about Russh...

Issue: September/October 2007
Pages: 178
Inside front cover: Marcs
Back cover: Burberry

Front-of-book ads: Wrangler, Havaianas, Lee, Sachi, Hugo Boss, Levi's, Guess, MasterCard, D&G

Letters to Russh: One of the most entertaining pages in the magazine – readers get a right dressing down as if they were Go Fug Yourself subjects! Props to Russh for publishing snarky reader letters (and Charlotte's responses) alongside the typical sycophantic kind. The banter with 'Franky Fairmont' is pure bitchiness (which is such an unattractive girl trait but works for entertainment value) – Franky disses Russh for its improper use of perfume, poor journalism and contradictory take on what's in/not. Charlotte tells us she's personally replied to perfume-sniffing Franky on her MySpace – "Sounds like you've been drinking those perfumes... and you're not a pretty drunk". Ooh, touché! Then Tara from NSW writes of her lack of love for the last cover and is swiftly cut down: "Sadly, for you, this cover sold like hotcakes." Meow!

Ed's Letter: Really enjoyed it. Charlotte gets nostalgic about the mix tape. A personal touch.

Fashion pages I liked: 'Close to the bone' (look, there's the American Apparel bodysuit I'm wearing right now... Russh fashion validation makes me feel a bit special); 'Leave Your Hat On' (Cory Kennedy is overexposed, no?); the 'Style Icon' page devoted to Romy Schneider – something new about someone I didn't know; the bitsy Fashion News pages; and 'We Love' (pictured below), which is always great – so much inspiration packed onto two pages! Features: Aussie model come Paris Vogue cover model Catherine McNeil is profiled (she's stunning to look at but doesn't have much to say... kinda like most of today's top models); Georgie McCourt writes a Jasmine Award-worthy paean to perfume; there's a DPS devoted to Tsubi's weird-ass summer collection (it's like something out of a sci-fi novel, which I'm sure was the intention); a provocative DPS 'Arts' spread looking at the life of career groupie Pamela Des Barres; two pages on current It girl Bat For Lashes; and three pages for kids of the 70s and 80s who spent a good deal of their spare time compiling mix tapes (half the mag's appeal is in its play on nostalgia), with plenty of playlists to download.
Beauty pages of note: 'Beauty Icon' (Anita Pallenberg); 'Beauty Scrapbook' (interview with makeup artist Manami Ishikawa); a DPS story by Joanna Bounds, similar to one I read in US Elle (May), about the affect of sugar on the skin (i.e. your chocolate and lolly addiction is going to age you like a sunbaker); and a page on fake tanning; 11 pages of pure visual candy in the form of 'The Golden Years' (50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s), photographed by Pierre Toussaint, which is interesting to look at (a beauty look for the era accompanies a compilation page of images); and Catherine Caines looks at the growing obsession for surgery in the pursuit of 'designer bodies'.

Health: Skinny Bitch is there; happiness is there (there is so much editorial dedicated to finding happiness across women's mags right now, you'd be forgiven for thinking we're a miserable lot – writer Emily Lawrence-Gazal looks at the issue from the perspective that we are spoilt for choice, and I agree); and I always enjoy 'Simon Says' – a personal trainer's no-bull health/fitness advice – though I don't always agree with what Simon Says, I do this month (Lindsay Lohan may be thin but she looks 35 already; Nicole Richie may not have has an 'eating disorder' but drugs and alcohol helped to numb her hunger; and what you eat should just be common sense – i.e. sugar and fat and no exercise = recipe for diabetes and obesity). Main fashion spreads: Can barely contain my excitement. I love them all. Two were shot in New York. 'Last Exit to Brooklyn' is edgy, punky and street; 'Someday You'll Go Far' is a tribute to the full-piece swimsuit and bodysuit; and the day/night shoot 'Queen of Sheeba', modelled by the gorgeous Abbey Lee, is Picnic at Hanging Rock meets the 70s jumpsuit/bodysuit.
Travel: We're taken to Miami by writer Nikki Goss.

Last Look: We exit with a tribute to St Tropez style. Take me there now... and make me look like Brigitte Bardot.

Annoying: the copy errors. Please hire a sub-editor. (P.S. I get sleepy sometimes and fail to edit my blog posts – sorry! – but Russh is a professional magazine).
General thoughts: I adore this issue of Russh.

Overall excitement factor: 9-10 (I will be re-reading parts over the weekend)
Feel-good rating: 4
Prude factor: quite high (it's a little provocative – I found myself flicking past some pages quickly on the bus; not for the kids.)

Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel

Ode to grey marle

My love affair with grey marle is no secret – I wear it on my sleeve.. almost every day (see, there I am wearing it over there, trying to look nonchalant, friendly and like I might know what I'm talking about... if I just rest my chin in my hand).

There's just something that says chic but casual about a colour that's in between black and white. It goes with denim, of course, but, unlike white, you can wear it with black without looking like a checkout chick.

I ordered no fewer than four items in said grey colour on American Apparel (the Australian site!) last week (including the Unisex Tri-Blend Short Sleeve Track Shirt, $29, and Tri-Blend Halter Romper, $45) in preparation for spring (to be worn with high-waisted shorts or jeans, my tan belt and sandals, and a bit of hot pink nail polish), so I'm loving these new shots of 'Olivia' by The Sartorialist...

If only I had her tan (something definitely necessary if you don't want to look like a walking dead person in your grey garb)... pass the St Tropez!

Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel

Bookmark it now...

Coz there simply isn't enough fashion coverage on the web – you can now get a sartorial hit on MySpace!

According to Brand Week, MySpace Fashion will feature video diaries looking into celebrity closets and the lives of fashionistas through a segment called "The Fit" (this week it's French band The Plasticines)... Hilary Duff and Pete Wentz are also lined up for the segment. Site editors will also feature designer profiles. Partnering up with The Space is Who What Wear Daily (my favourite fashion bloggers) and InStyle, who are providing style news streaming from their own website.

Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel

Shop in review

Issue: September 2007
Pages: 246
Inside front cover: Revlon
Back cover: Myer

Front-of-book ads: L'Oreal, Fiorelli, John Frieda, Clinique, David Jones, Rimmel, Esprit, Stella, Morrissey, Glue Store...

Ed's letter: Kerrie McCallum glosses over the key spring trends and her staff's current obsession with cuffs and asks the question, "Why are boys looking more and more like girls?". She's referring to the type of guy who works in General Pants and wears his skinny jeans super-low – Husband tried this look out in a General Pants store once and it amused me no end; it takes a certain weedy body shape to pull of man-skinnies and his hulking big legs looked like sausages caught up in a fabric fight; how I imagine Russel Crowe might look in Pete Wentz's clothes. Poor men – they're damned if they do and damned if they don't. Dare to try the latest trends and risk hysterical ego-killing laughter from your partner; don't keep up with the trends and be the butt of your mate's jokes. The whole metrosexual thing really has confused the issue of fashion and upkeep for men; it's a fine line between what's considered metro and homo behaviour.

Shop Front: The newsy pages deliver bits on new lines, while Top Shops and Hunters & Gatherers delivers info on shops – not overly exciting for moi but I know these pages are popular with boutique owners and retail buyers.

Fashion spreads: First up is 'Short and Sweet' styled by Jada Fitzgerald – eight pages of wearable and fun dresses and skirts with this season's chunky heels. Next are 'Young Modern' (graphic prints), 'Colours of the Season' (white, bright, metallic...) and, by far my favourite, 'To a Tee' styled by Jackie Shaw (see images below). This shoot, incorporating the "humble T-shirt" is fun, bright, simple and epitomises laid-back Aussie style – just my kind of thing. Woo! Cutting and pasting the black-blazer-and-tee shot into my little look book immediately.





Features: Beauty editor Amy Starr tests out the mini (see below) for 'Can you work the mini?', a kind of trend-on-trial story. Starr feels empowered by her mini – she dons a short, floaty dress first, followed by a mini skirt with tights, and a smock dress. There's safety in a shorter hemline when it's accompanied my volumous layers on top – lest you look like Julia Roberts working the street in Pretty Woman – but if you haven't got your car exit down part, you still risk, as Starr points out, flashing your smalls.

'Boy Meets Girl' is David Smiedt's story on femi-masculinity. The intro is clever... in fact, the entire piece, which traces the androgynous trend, is good for laughs. Let's face it, The Bee Gees and Guns 'N' Roses were wearing tight pants, and Kurt Cobain was into nanna cardigans, way before the emo kids latched onto it.

I'm surprised the five-page style feature 'Your look, can I steal it?' (below) hasn't been done before. We're forever reading stories on how to 'steal' a celebrity's style, but rarely women on the street – who are often better put together, without Rachel Zoe's assistance. I'm fascinated by what other women wear and how they wear it – the best thing about Fashion Week and functions is checking out what the industry girls are wearing. Blogs like The Sartorialist and mags like Nylon have been in tune with our lust for real-girl style for ages. Love this. More every month, please.

Shoe obsessives will love the 13 pages dedicated to new styles for spring (acid brights and metallics for me!) and I'm totally envying Jade Alexander-Erber's spacious wardrobe complete with multiple shoe shelves (see page 90).

Beauty: There's a DPS on makeup counter makeovers (writer Amy Starr tries and tests all of them for us) and eight pages dedicated to the 'one' product we should buy this season (yawn at first glance but am now considering buying the Stila bronzer and M.A.C lipstick featured – am such a sucker). We then get three pages of ready-to-wear hair – some styling advice and celebrity pictures. Then there's a feature interviewing Jo Horgan of Mecca Cosmetica and Mirella Verga from Priceline, and a DPS of cheap beauty buys.

Amsterdam gets a look in in 'Foreign Exchange' and Home News tickles the interior decorator/dinner party hostess within – these are some of my favourite pages. Love the DPS on Noosa Heads shop Tiny Bird. Must visit.

There are seemingly endless 'promotion' pages (44 in total... not including the 8-page 'Designer Giveaway') – 30 Days of Fashion and Beauty gets 16 of them alone.

I would love to see Shop push itself creatively – the format is starting to look a bit tired. The highlights for me this month were certainly the 'To a Tee' fashion shoot and 'Your Look, Can I Steal It?'. Shopping is so much fun – whether you're sneakily doing it online at work, scoping the markets with a girlfriend, hitting DJs with your mum or spending crazy amounts of cash on an overseas trip – if the mag were to reflect this on each and every page, I'd be sold.

Overall excitement factor rating: 6
Mag feel-good rating: ambivalent (I just invented a new category!)

Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel

Glitzy Aussie style...

Radio host Jackie O and author Tara Moss add a little glamour to Sydney airport...

And it's a month of golden foils: the glitzy covers of the new Russh Australia (love at first flick) and Girlfriend, on sale now.


Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel

Jackie O/Tara Moss pic care of Austral Press.

Zoe's debut book

Get your credit cards ready... Further to Nina Garcia's highly anticipated style tome, The Little Black Book of Style, Rachel Zoe's 192-page Style A to Zoe: the Art of Fashion, Beauty and Everything Glamour (Grand Central Publishing) is available for pre-order on Amazon.com.

The book will be released in Oz in November and will retail for $39.95 – every little girl and her sister will want it for Christmas (let's just hope it doesn't contain glamour-girl dieting tips!).

The one glaring omission, as far as I can see from the press pack, is Nicole Richie (Mischa, Lindsay and her other clients are pictured within the pages.) Such a shame given Zoe was responsible for Richie's style makeover and subsequent rise to popularity and style icon status.

Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel

Elle UK in review

Issue: September 2007
Pages: 428
Inside front cover: Ralph Lauren
Back cover: Miss Dior Cherie

Front-of-book ads: Estee Lauder, Emporio Armani, Dolce & Gabbana, Gucci, Clinique, Prada, Dior, Louis Vuitton, Versace, Miu Miu, Celine, Chanel, Guess, YSL, Valentino... the usual suspects.

Ed's letter: Lorraine Candy (back from maternity leave) gets us excited about the upcoming October issue (expect a new look) and tells us about her busy editor schedule. In keeping with the magazine's overall fashion-is-fun vibe, this ed's letter does the job. It's sparse, quick and lively, avoids the usual glorified contents list and unnecessary grandstanding.

Fashion: Tailoring, tux suits, skirt suits, sunnies, patent accessories, ankle boots, platform shoes and jumpsuits all get page space in the front-of-book style section. There are four main fashion shoots – I liked 'Boom Box' (80s-style party pieces), 'Seventies Cool' (12 70s-inspired looks) and 'The New Frontier' ("eclectic ethnic style meets futuristic global traveller" – really, what will they think of next? How about "Street bum smelly pants meets upper class Prada-wearing snoot"?). Twenty-three pages are dedicated to fashion trends done affordably in the High Street section (fun, bright, inspiring). Kirsten Dunst gets a look in, as do Mary-Jane shoes.

Fashion features: Derek Lam is 'designer of the month'; the boho-tec trend gets analysed; Savannah Miller is this month's Closet Confidential subject; and we're shown how to 'do' autumn jackets over three pages...

Features: 'Elle Hot 50' – I'm a huge fan of Elle's fashion/pop culture/beauty compilation specials (see below layout) and this one doesn't disappoint. There are new albums, artists, TV shows, trends, books and movies ripe for the picking, all styled in the fresh, bold and brassy way Elle does best.


'Facing Prejudice Made Me Stronger' is the story of deaf model Brenda Costa (apparently fashion industry folk can be unkind even to the hearing impaired); 'Supersize My Birthday' is a first-person look at the growing trend for self-indulgent, celebrity-inspired birthday bashes spanning more than the standard one-day/night affair (hooray – the 'Me Generation' has taken the whole birthday thing too far... you get one day, people!); we get a memoir piece about a girl who did coke with her mum (let's just say things have never quite been the same); 'Survive the Break-Up Blues' is a story by Alex Heminsely, author of Ex and the City (Pan Macmillan), a girl who makes being dumped look like a blast; three new types of yoga are tried out, the question 'Do separate beds work?' is answered, we're told 'How to hire a handbag', one writer learns how to give herself a blow-dry and the 'dating duo' is experimental fodder in 'Elle Tests'...

Celebrity features: Yet another cover story (six pages, no less) on the always sensible, perfume-creating, fashion-loving, deeply private Sarah Jessica Parker, plugging her new perfume. Coty PR is in overdrive. DJ du jour Mark Ronson is profiled over three pages (his music is amazing... and we can thank his girlfriend, Cosi, for that, as he runs all his music by her first); Jared Leto (strange but beautiful) is interviewed by Alice Fisher (who hilariously gets a mouthful of his hair when she dives in for a good-bye kiss); indie icon Maggie Gyllenhaal isn't the most inspiring interview subject but at least she's normal-ish; Jamie Bell (Billy Elliott) gets the quick Q&A treatment; five actresses are profiled and photographed for 'Coming to America' (my new girl crushes: Parminder Nagra from Bend It Like Beckham/ER) and Lena Headey; and Isla Fisher – fiancee to Ali G – gets 'The Last Word.' She's so cute you could sell her in the little girls' section of Toys "R" Us.

Beauty: Always brilliant still-life photography; this month it's the smoky eye and punk-rock makeup trend who look coolest on the page. There's a blah-blah spa guide (they tick me off, as the only spa I visit is the one at my Christmas holiday destination... and it's likely filled with kiddie pee); a first-person piece on the Kate by Kate Moss perfume launch; and info on massages, eye makeup removers and applying red lipstick (courtesy of Aussie expat Poppy King). Liv Tyler is the subject of 'Love Her Beauty'. And there's a wordy two-page feature celebrating quirky British beauty (those Poms are sick of trying to look like bronzed Baywatch babes... though I'm not sure the Wags will ditch their solarium habits in favour of Kelly Osbourne's glam-goth look). Writer Ellen Burney, 26, looks at anti-ageing for 20-somethings. And crimping gets a look in – but we shall not be going back there, unless we're 12 and missed out the first time 'round.

Lifestyle: beach-side hangouts and clubbing hot spots for the cashed-up. Booooring.

Overall excitement factor: 7

Feel-good factor*: 3

Looking forward to seeing next month's re-vamped UK Elle – I hope it lives up to the hype.

Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel


* Feel-good factor rating scale:
1 - Depressed: Take me to my therapist!
2 - Anxious: Do my thighs look big in this?
3 - Inadequate: Where's my gold Visa?
4 - Inspired: I LOVE being a girl!
5 - Excited: I'm going to change my hair/relationship/attitude...
6 - Empowered: I feel smart, cool, caring and confident.

Looking forward to...

Seeing Delta Goodrem's image reincarnation in next month's Cosmopolitan. By the looks of the below shot, the good-girl of Australian pop music is channeling Farrah Fawcett and Kate Moss... and has made very good friends with bronzer.


Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel

P.S. September Shop Til You Drop is on sale ($7), with Gwyneth on the cover.

Frankie in review

Issue: September/October 2007

Pages: 222

Ads: I'm consistently impressed with the synergy between Frankie's design aesthetic and the advertising it carries. Take, for instance, the ad for www.lovebirds.com.au opposite 'Toy Story' (you could lick the page it's so sweet) – genius ad placement, though it would look complementary regardless of its positioning. It's both a privilege and work of marketing genius (and possibly editorial initiative) that sees Frankie carry A-grade ads each month, which are completely in sinc with the simple, quirky, cute, hipster layouts of the magazine itself. Also loving the ad creative for labels Don't Ask Amanda, Stussy and Zoo York... and the cheeky Mambo 'Vague' ad (a kick in the side for Vogue).

Back cover: Paul Frank
Inside front cover: Roxy
Inside back cover: Havaianas

Editorial: I equate 'Frankie Bits' to a tasty cheese and fruit platter – totally satisfying, easily digestible and fun; take your time perusing it and enjoy every bite. I always read about a new website (georgielove.com), musician/band (Shout Out Louds), designer (kirstinash.com)... fabulous compilation pages and a cool entree to the rest of the mag's contents. Your cool credibility is up before we're even started.

Loved the illustrated piece 'Commonly held myths about being a writer with Miranda July' (worth the cover price alone – for me, anyway); 'I love my shop' is always an enjoyable page to read; and the photographic spread, taken from Love It and Leave It: Australia's Creative Diaspora by Natalie Latham, made me think (how did we get to such an embarrassing state of arts funding in this country – we often talk about 'brain drain' with regards to doctors but so much creative talent is lost to New York, London... Admittedly, Australia seems like a small place/market for many of these people, but surely we should value them as much as we do our footy players... yes, as much chance of that as Pauline Hanson giving up politics for good).

'My worst crime against the environment' sees the magazine's crew of regular writers tackle the eco issue from a personal perspective – it's entertaining and food for thought. Mia Timpano, that crude, vitriolic young writer (who's moonlighting for Cosmo) is there amongst them. I'm sure her voice appeals to many, and I have the makings of a future fuddy-duddy, but the extreme colloquialism, with interjecting swear words, gets to me. She's so #@*%#&% angry.

The 'My first job' four-page photographic feature is clever and fun – four musicians pose in the uniforms of their first jobs; 'Little Boy Lost' profiles Kids director Harmony Korine; the 'Mantlepiece' double-page spread featuring a collection of cat cards is as adorable as your nanna; the Q&A with former Topshop designer Claire Greaves about her range, Maise, is a good read and visual treat; 'I love my job' introduces us to a female wine maker; 'Kanyini' informs us about the documentary film of the same name produced by Melanie Hogan (a former investment banker turned filmmaker/Aboriginal rights activist); there are stories on musical ladies M.I.A. and Bat For Lashes (a.k.a. Natasha Khan), who are the perfect antidote to the pop-standard blondes we're so used to; Mia Timpano's perfume reviews (with added spunk) are unlike the drippy reviews that are the norm; the profile of Sydney DJ Anna Lunoe and the words of Glen Robbins are inspiring.

Fashion-wise, swimsuits (full suits and bikinis) get a premature run. I'm still wearing tights and a Bonds hoodie (though it was damn hot commuting from the Gold Coast to Sydney today).

Overall excitement factor*: 7

Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel
* Overall excitement factor rating scale:
1 - To the recycling bin!
2 - Can I have a refund?
3 - Oh, dear – hope next month is better...
4 - Borrow from a friend, if you must.
5 - Not a total waste of money.
6 - Good but not glowing.
7 - Satisfying, with some excellent bits.
8 - Pocket money well spent.
9 - Prime bookshelf positioning.
10 - I'm going to laminate every page and archive it.

Madison in review

Issue: September 2007

Pages: 294

Front-of-book ads: Ralph Lauren, Clinique, Chanel, Emporio Armani, Sunsilk, Dior, Lacoste, Louis Vuitton (featuring Scarlett!), Gucci, Chanel, Revlon, Bvlgari, Cartier, Givenchy, Elizabeth Arden... this is getting boring.

Back cover: Lancome

Feature topics: Ovarian Cancer, wives of World Trade Centre bombing victims, Monaco's royal family, the Federal Government's Northern Territory intervention scheme, WWE steroid abuse, kidults, the sweat lodge (shamanism), female stand-up comedians, Isabella Blow, alcohol-related weight gain (it's like the world is only just tuning in to the fact that alcohol makes you fat!), sex-life repairs.

Entertainment: I feel I've read the Scarlett story before; The Waifs get a mention; I like the way they divide their movie/book/music reviews into 'What everyone will be talking about...' and 'What everyone should be talking about...' columns, by way of cultural education.

Fashion: I'm feeling white and yellow and silver. On every page. Almost. I'm loving the 'red hot sunglasses' page, 'Luxe to Less' (yellow heels and a matching chunky sports watch are the missing links in my wardrobe!); I enjoyed reading 'The next big thing' story about Fiona Scanlan's range for tweens, though I'm not a mother and will most likely not be buying anything for my little ones that costs more than my own clothing; the 'Workshop' pages are well put together with lots of ideas; the 'Shirt Stories' spread is so-so; the 'Walking on Sunshine' spread uses an annoying diffused light that obscures the clothes (would have loved it/wanted everything on each page otherwise); the 'Step into Spring' spread feels very done-before-but-must-be-done; and Cheap Chic is cute but contains a $499 dress by Saba (um, cheap on whose terms?). Skipped over too-long story on Peter Morrissey.

Beauty: another Q&A with Miranda Kerr (her PR is earning her salary); a few interesting bits; a Q&A with Tom Ford (we are all supposed to worship at his feet, right?); liking Luxe to Less product picks; still-life page of products in grass seems out of place; 'Diary of a Beauty Launch' is something I'll come back to and read, as Stephanie is quite the funny writer; 'The Miracle Workers' could have done with featuring actual pictures of the interview subjects (how do I know if I want to follow her skin-care regime? She could look like raisin face Rachel Zoe, for all I know)...

Huge promotional exercise: 17 pages dedicated to '30 days of fashion & beauty' mega-wank.

Health: 'Is drinking making you fat?'. Me, no – I don't really drink. Unless we're talking tea and water; 'Please make up this relationship' – will a dirty weekend save your sex life? Interesting read but I read something much better recently about sex and fidelity here (scroll down to the 'Infidelity' post).

Living: Chloe Sevigny's pad – it seems so out of character!; 'French Connection' – highly stylised Hunter Valley shoot; 'A Feminine Feast' (enter the Madison/Tocca launch) – everything looks so perfect I want to ruffle it up.

Travel: buy the Louis Vuitton travel notebook ($110) before you head to Phuket, then get your ski gear on in Colorado.

Shops: catwalk pics and a mish-mash of home decorator/fashion/beauty still-life. Always puzzling but strangely alluring.

Manual: 'Look great after a long-haul flight'; 'Interpret your dreams'; 'Go to an event alone'...

Soapbox: Wendy Squires on why women think they want Aidan when they're really craving Mr. Big. We did men such a disservice with the whole 'we love sensitive new-age guys' thing.

Overall excitement factor (1 being 'To the recycling bin!'; 5 being 'Not a total waste of money'; and 10 being 'I'm going to laminate every page and archive it'): 7

General thoughts: It contains the only story on the Aboriginal/Nothern Territory issue I've bothered to read (I am such a slacker); it prompted my post about spiritual enlightenment; Katrina Blowers' trend story on kidults was a good read.

Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel

P.S. I have the new plastic-wrapped Frankie in my possession: whee! It shall be accompanying me on a 12-hour drive from the Gold Coast to Sydney on Monday and you shall have a plump review of it some time soon after. I wonder if the feisty Mia Timpano is still contributing now she has a column in Cosmo?

Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel

In the bag...

I've become so accustomed to domestic flights these past few years (an 18-month long-distance courtship – funny old word! – with Husband and several beauty editor junkets saw me notch up a few miles) that I now know to pack some form of light entertainment (book, magazine...) in my handbag in case of delays.

I was grateful for this knowledge last night, as the old Virgin Blue was running two hours behind schedule out of Brisbane. Because there's only so much time you can spend in the newsagent flicking through the new Vanity Fair before someone asks you to buy it or leave it, and inhaling a Greek salad takes about five minutes. After the mag/food ritual was complete, I stuck my head in a book. A very good book, which you will adore. Particularly if you read this book in your youth...

It was one of the most-borrowed books at the Our Lady of Lourdes primary school library, and I borrowed it twice. It was like a right of passage for every 11-year-old Catholic girl I knew. Blume had the most amazing ability to both read and titillate your mind. Periods, boobs, bras, boys, religion, teachers, friends, fashion... her characters chartered all the pre-teen territory long before the word 'tween' became popular.
The book I stuffed in my hand luggage yesterday is a tribute to Blume's work – Everything I Needed to Know About Being a Girl I Learned from Judy Blume edited by Jennifer O'Connell. It's deliciously good. Twenty-four writers have each contributed a chapter themed around how Deenie, It's Not the End of the World, Then Again Maybe I Won't, Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret and Blume's other books helped them negotiate the confusion they faced growing up. Her books were like friends, confidantes and allies, who never judged you – they told it like it was and made you feel informed, wise and a bit naughty. I highly suggest you buy this book, though pace your reading. It's not like Harry Potter – there's only so much confessional female rhetoric you can swallow in a sitting. Savour the flavour like a bar of Cadbury's and read it on the side of your more serious book meals – just a piece a night.

Another book I have my eye on is to be released early next month. It's Nina Garcia's The Little Black Book of Style (Harper Collins). Garcia is fashion director for US Elle and a judge on Project Runway. Her book is described by Fashion Week Daily as "a one-stop guide to cultivating a sense of personal style...". It includes sections on wardrobe staples, balancing classics and trends, how to create your own style, occasion dressing and combining colours and textures. Food for fashionistas! Gimme, gimme... I need it for my three-hour flight to Longreach, central Queensland, in mid September.

Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel

A bitsy post...

I may not get to post tomorrow night (I'll be on a plane), so here's some bits to keep your blog-hungry eyes happy (I had quite a lot of fun pulling this together)...

Fashion Week Daily AND Daily Candy have had mini makeovers (see below – GWAS has subscribed to Daily Candy since 2002 – that's, like, before MySpace or 'BMS'!), possibly inspired by all the magazine redesigns. There's nothing like a bit of a refresh to keep your readers from dying of boredom. Oprah's makeover shows are always really popular.

Now I'm going to be really lazy and link to two reviews of the September issue of US Vogue: first is Cathy Horyn's (she be the New York Times' long-standing fashion critic); second is GlossedOver's hilarious rolling review – a marathon effort at seven hours, with four cans of Diet Dr. Pepper Berries and Cream consumed while flicking through 660 pages of the 840 page (gasp! ) tome. Anna Wintour is leaving a King-Kong-sized, Gucci-clad carbon footprint on the planet and she's taking us all down with her. I'm not going to buy the issue on principle (aren't I good, Mr. Gore?!).

I wonder, does Sienna hold appeal for Americans? Being a country whose general population – educated college folk notwithstanding – would be hard-pressed to pick their own president from a line-up, I do wonder if they know who she is. But, I suppose, Vogue-reading Americans are not your 'average' Americans, right? They may have been some of the five people who saw Factory Girl.

Back to Aussie mags – you should also read this week's SMH 'What the gossip mags say' column. The weeklies are an easy target, given their penchant for celebrity weight stories, but it's funny nonetheless...

And a final note before I put myself to bed... not wearing Peter Alexander PJs. I received his spring catalogue in the mail today and am tempted to spend a ridiculous amount of money on bed-wear that I will wear for a week before reverting to my trackies/boxers and oversized tee combo.

Nighty night!

Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel

Mmm, healthy food

My passion for Australian Healthy Food Guide magazine is equalled only by UK Elle. This magazine gets me as excited about preparing, cooking and eating healthy food as Elle does about buying clobber to imitate the latest catwalk looks. And as I have been particularly ravenous today (working out just makes you eat like a pig; I have seriously not stopped to breathe), I thought it appropriate to dig in and review.

Look past the wheatgrass image (odd choice – doesn't get me salivating but is also strangely calming) on the cover and inside the September 2007 issue you'll find:

– tidbits on metabolic syndrome, bigorexia (men have body issues too), ways to reduce your wheeze (eat more omega-3 fatty acids and vitamins A and E), post-pregnancy weight loss (basically, you have to exercise, as well as starve yourself if you want your old body back), nut eating (raw almonds lower cholesterol levels – nothing new here) and obesity (if you're overweight, give into cravings... in moderation)
– a totally doable recipe for tuna, chickpea and roast tomato salad (only 5.2 grams of fat!)
– a feature busting 25 food myths (there's nothing special about wheatgrass; it's what you snack on, not when you snack, that affects weight gain; spot reducing fat is a lost cause; forget detoxing and change your eating habits for life; a grapefruit will not dissolve fat or burn up kilojoules)
– a story on healthy eating for men (if only the men in my life cared enough about their health to read about it)
– a comprehensive "Non-Cook's Guide" to healthy meal preparation, including no-brainer recipes, a list of what to store in your fridge/cupboard and a gourmet ingredient dictionary (this is perfect for a novice like Yours Truly)
– pages of recipes (low-fat, gluten free, vegan, low salt...), which include nutritional information
– "5 weekday meals" (Rosemary Chicken Greek Salad; Mexican Bean Soup; Roast Tomato and Ricotta Frittata; Salmon, Fetta and Green Olive Penne; and Soy Beef and Noodle Stir-Fry – yummo!)
– a healthy cheesecake recipe
– three pages dedicated to Vietnamese rice paper rolls (GWAS is partial to these)
– reader recipes
– top 10 tips for losing weight (nothing new but it's only a page)
– tips on what to order when eating out at Vietnamese restaurants
– two pages on label reading chicken stocks (um, skip!)
– how much exercise to do to burn off that muffin, hot chips, Mars Bar...
– advice on how to say no to food (as a party-pooping, office-birthday-cake-skipper, this interested me)
– a buyer's guide to sliced bread
– a personal story about chronic fatigue syndrome (kind of a depressing feature to close the mag with, but, eh!)

I find that I get immense pleasure from reading half the magazine but that the content on diet and exercise somewhat contradicts the wholesome 'eating for pleasure' ethos most of the editorial espouses. There are already so many other titles on the market are telling us how to lose weight – Weight Watchers, Slimming... – that it would be refreshing to read a magazine whose sole purpose is to help us rediscover the pleasure of food (while secretly keeping our waistlines in check).

At $4.95, it's still a bargain magazine buy.

Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel

Aussie writers in London

After spending a week in London last year, GWAS and her BFF decided they simply couldn't live there because the weather was so foul – which, in turn, made the people foul. That said, they agree that one of the best days of their lives was a Saturday spent at Portobello Markets noshing on blueberries and plums while buying up vintage jewellery, knock-off designer handbags and cute summer dresses. They even ran into Magda Szubanski – a.k.a Sharon – in a cafe! (Cue Barbara Streisand's "Memories").

If you're stuck in your chair at work and fancy a bit of armchair travelling when you're not glued to Facebook, or are planning a trip to London, I suggest you visit these two fresh-for-the-picking blogs – both are exquisite in words and pictures.
Former Sydney magazine editor, and current freelance journalist, Rebecca Lowrey Boyd and her partner are sharing a flat in London, from which she produces weebirdy.com, a blog primarily about shopping, style and beauty. The layout is gorgeous and each post is a visual treat. Rebecca's writing is exciting, succinct and cute. Her latest post on Mrs Kibble's Olde Sweet Shoppe gave me sugar cravings. Daily Candy, eat your heart out...

Sydney writer Carla Johnston recently spent two weeks in Paris with GWAS's sister (I miss you – come home!), during which time she diligently posted about their daily adventures in the City of Love. She's now back in London and looking for work. Last year, she did the same in NYC. The girl's got 'future magazine editor' written all over her.

Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel

Notes on Nicole

While most of Australia tuned in to Kath and Kim on Seven last night, little Nicole Richie made an appearance on 60 Minutes. Wide-eyed and perfectly groomed, 25-year-old Richie told Diane Sawyer of her rise to fame via The Simple Life and subsequent delinquent behaviour: "It got so much so fast that nothing really excited me any more. I, kind of, took matters into my own hands and was creating drama in a very dangerous way... I was just bored and I had seen everything. Especially when you're young, you constantly want more."

Nicole Richie wants us to know and think she's okay. She's not touched heroin in four years or cocaine in nine – and now she has Joel Madden of Good Charlotte, a relatively conservative bloke who grew up in a Christian household, in her life... and a baby on the way. She says she's happy.

The night she was arrested for driving the wrong way up a highway, she'd taken Vicodin (which she claims to take for bad period pain) and smoked marijuana – she is prepared to pay her dues through her four days behind bars and recognises she needs to "be an adult." And the weight issue? She knows she was too skinny but confesses she had issues (though never had a bona fide "eating disorder"), and she's much healthier now, thank you.

For all her guarded and well-crafted confessions, I'm still not really buying in. What I saw was a girl who still needs the world to validate her existence (and this is the media's fault as much as her own); who has become accustomed to attention and playing the celebrity game; who shops to fill the gaps in her existence; who fell under the spell of drugs and booze; and who hopes a baby will complete her and make her happy. I see someone who is still very much lost.

All of us need something more, something greater than ourselves, to survive in the world. Something to guide us through the times when we're troubled or seeking out fulfillment and happiness in the wrong places. Something that makes us strong without the use of narcotics. Something to reassure us that we're okay. Something to fill us up when carbs won't cut it. Something to make us feel like we're contributing to the greater good...

This month's Madison looks at enlightenment – a celebrity trend that got serious column inches when Madonna first took up with the Kaballah crowd (though Tom and his Scientology gang were already onto it). In her 'Upfront' letter, editor Paula Joye talks of the celebrity crowd's penchant for quick-fix enlightenment, as opposed to the life-long-journey kind. She closes with these thoughts: "As I get older, the one thing I'm determined to give more attention to is faith. Recently I witnessed a situation where two friends suffered an identical and terrible loss. One has a strong belief system, the other less so. It was remarkable to see how the one with faith managed her grief. or perhaps she let it manage her? But she found self-forgiveness much more rapidly than my other friend. It crystallised just how important it is to truly believe in something."

As a practising Christian (meaning, I go to church, read the Bible, pray to God, try to live by the values of love, joy, kindness, gentleness, patience and self-control, and battle on a daily basis with just how crap I am at being a good Christian person), I can relate to what Paula's saying.

Before I rediscovered my faith (I was not easily won over – the world had produced a cynical, skeptical journalist), after years of relying on good luck, hard work and alcoholic social lubricants, I was like a little girl stumbling through life as best as I knew how, frequently tripping on the trappings of materialism, potential career success and world/male/boss/friend validation. Nowadays, I spend more time worrying about whether I showed people enough love during the day, than if I've been passed over for a great opportunity. I've never been one to envy the position/looks/abilities of other women (I practise 'female appreciation'), but faith certainly keeps this in check, too – though shalt not covet another woman's wardrobe, etc. Faith is grounding; it reminds you of what's important; it drives your decision-making; it keeps you humble; it gives you the kind of peace celebrities are prepared to pay thousands of dollars for to satiate their inner emptiness – and it's FREE!

Roll your eyes at will, but it's my belief and I'm sticking to it.

Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel

P.S. As reported in Media Week, Bronwyn McCahon of Dolly has been appointed editor of Cosmopolitan, so the search is on for an editor of the teen title.

Jezebel likes something

Get your Monday-morning magazine fix by reading the review of the re-designed US Elle on Jezebel.com (thanks, Jezebel, for making the article URL so long – it was super-fun and time consuming to type out!). I'm yet to get my hands on a copy (darnit) but shall post my thoughts when I do. I hope I'm as enamoured as Jezebel's Jennifer.

Of minor significance (really minor in the people-dying-in-Africa-every-second scheme of things): I watched Just My Luck on pay-TV last night: Lindsay Lohan plays a PR exec who loses her luck to a down-and-out but cute band manager (Chris Pine). In the Q&A that followed the film, Lindsay told us she was happy to finally play a character who knew what Prada was.

Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel

P.S. September Madison is on sale Monday.

Media mistresses

Call me sizeist but I've chosen to remove the misshaped/overstretched images in my sidebar as I'm a perfectionist and can't stand to look at them any longer. Hopefully Blogger will sort out the problem soon, so I can go about merrily updating my reading list (which currently includes UK Elle, a stash of Sunday newspapers and The Art of Being Kind by Stefan Einhorn).

To superficial matters...

Has anyone noticed the uncanny resemblance Australian TV host/model/author Kathryn Eisman bears to New York real estate mogul/socialite Ivanka Trump?

Given both are brainy beauties from privileged backgrounds, the similarity is particularly eerie.

Speaking of brainy beauties. I'm not sure what her IQ is (I think she went to university, if that's anything to go by – Google is not helping me with this one), but 23-year-old Sydney socialite/racing royalty Kate Waterhouse has taken to her new role as The Sunday Telegraph's party reporter like a duck to water. This past week she attended the Nobu opening in Melbourne (where my invitation got to, I do not know) and the Urban Music Awards at Luna Park. Not loving the leopard-print heels Kate sports in her byline picture, but she'd have to be one of the most attractive faces in the rag. She may have the best hair in Sydney (see below).

In other Sydney media news, the vivacious and controversial Bianca Dye has resigned from her post as Nova 96.9's morning show host. According to news.com.au, Dye is planning to travel around the world with her boyfriend, Vega FM breakfast show producer Alex Agishev: "I'm such a goal oriented person but my dream was to get to Sydney and get to number one, and I did that," says Dye. "There's a whole other side to me that I don't even know about and want to explore... My dream is to work in TV, but who knows, I could be back on radio in Australia by the end of 2008." No doubt Sydney audiences will miss her rough-and-tumble DJing style, as will events planners, who routinely call her in to spice up otherwise so-so social gatherings.

Dye's not the first radio personality to ditch a sorted-after job in favour of travel. Much-loved radio journo Katrina Blowers left her role as Merrick and Rosso's breakfast-shift news reader back in '05 to travel through Europe and the USA with her husband, which resulted in a book, Tuning Out: My Quarter-Life Crisis.Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel

P.S. I will be tuning in to 60 Minutes tonight to watch the interview with Nicole Richie. I am such a sucker.

If men ruled the world...

...um, they kinda already do. But if they ruled women's magazines, well, what the hell else would we have a monopoly on? The cosmetics industry? Fashion? Child birth (whee – we have a winner! If only that were an industry... oh, but it is, you say). But back to magazines (which are, arguably, still ultimately ruled by men in big corner offices; sigh)...

If Dylan Jones, editor of UK GQ, edited UK Glamour, he'd, "banish any photograph of a girl with a muffin top" and put this text on the cover: "Why it's totally OK for men to be emotionally detached and only want sex from you. All the time."

This issue of Glamour, containing 16 pages edited by men, reminds me of two things: that it's not just the fashion industry and media and women themselves, but, in fact, men who reinforce women's negative body images and misogynistic health habits; and that men are very simple creatures who could survive on sex (preferably the no-strings-attached type) and the odd meat pie alone.

Jones – a good looking fella but completely condescending – says in his feature story on women's fashion: "[I] would ban any feature that tells women how to look sexy in the office... as women who dress like that are simply a distraction." I'm sorry, but it has been proven, time and time again, that women dress for women (including themselves), not men; so what you may be interpreting as 'sexy' attire could really just be a woman's interpretation of the pencil skirt trend. If you were concentrating on doing your work, and not ogling your colleagues, we could all just get on with it.

And then this revelation: "Occasionally in the past I have deliberately not hired a women because she was too sexy, and lots of my male friends admit to doing the same." Right, so we're damned if we do and damned if we don't – dress like Ugly Betty and score the job (and feel like an adorable frump) or dress like Victoria Beckham (classic 'wag') and wind up working on the cosmetics floor at Myer.

Working in an industry dominated by fashion-loving females, where experimentation is encouraged and new trends are embraced with vigour (fluoro, minis, platforms... bring it on!), the guidelines for work-appropriate fashion are a little more relaxed. I've not worked in a law firm or IT company or engineering plant surrounded by male colleagues, but I can imagine getting dressed for work to be a more vexed issue for a woman who works in that sort of environment but likes a little Vogue in her lunch break. Thankfully, Jones gives us some guidance: "What men want is for women in the office to dress stylishly and attractively...". We are then shown (really unflattering) pictures of Kate Middleton, Keira Knightley and Uma Thurman ("the women who get it right") who know decorum and elegance, and that trying too hard doesn't look good. Note to men: this is what 95% of women aim for – if we miss the mark occasionally, give us a break.

Jones is also not fond of trends, which result in every woman looking like she stepped out of the same photo shoot (which automatically cancels out his hope of ever being a fashion editor): "I look around me now and just see a sea of girls in wedge shoes. What's so original about that?" He thinks buying things on-trend requires very little brain action ('cause putting on a suit and tie every day is like astrophysics): "It makes me wonder if women will actually buy anything they're told to." Um, no. Um, sometimes. Okay, I'm completely guilty of buying things that don't suit my body (blousy peasant tops, flouncy peasant skirts) but were on trend. Because Sienna Miller wore them. He might be onto something here.

Also in the 'If men edited Glamour' section is a story where Stephanie Clarkson interviews five anonymous men aged 25-33 about their sex lives and desires. Interesting read but nothing we haven't read before in Cosmo – wow, men really like it when women initiate sex? And they like us to feel comfortable with our bodies? And get a kick out of doing it outdoors? And you shouldn't talk about babies in the bedroom? And you should keep your pubic hair tidy? OMG!

The men Glamour has found for this piece are a little confused in the moral department (though, I'm sure, are representative of most of the modern male species): "I just imagined I was with her hot friend", "I'm mentally unfaithful all the time... it's only truly cheating if you act on it", "I enjoy sleeping with prostitutes...", "Insecure men have affairs, men who are secure in their sexual needs go to a prostitute", and "I'd never respect a woman who slept with me straight away. I think most men would much rather women hold back, it shows self respect. Ideally she should restrain herself for about a month – any longer then that you'd start to worry if she had issues with sex." My blood is boiling.

Piers Morgan, former editor of UK tabloid paper the Daily Mirror, lets us in on his success secrets – because success on male terms is the only way forward. Apparently arrogance, self-confidence, and disinterest served with a little self-deprecation and a "cheeky self-aware grin" will get you everywhere. Really? I think that would get me fired. "Most women are hopeless negotiating about money," he says (and I kind of agree), "I can count on one hand the number of female employees who ever asked me for a payrise during my ten years editing the Daily Mirror... My male employees would regularly bombard me with requests for more cash...". Men are greedy. Women are not entirely sure of their worth in monetary terms. For Morgan, any kind of emotional insecurity is also bad: "bubbling in front of your colleagues because your boss had a little dig at you is weak, nay pathetic". He should try working in an office full of girls with their periods for a week! We do try our darndest to keep our emotions off the boil but, unless you're a hard-nosed bitch, I think most of us have had a wee emotional blub at work (or at least in the bathrooms at work).

Just so you don't burst into tears at the thought of how unjustly women are treated and the great expectations that are put on our shoulders (including 'act more like men in the workplace'), Morgan finishes off his tough-love rant with a gentle pat on the back: "Women need to start feeling more confident in all aspects of their life. Love your body, adore the clothes you wear, be gloriously feminine, demand a salary appropriate to your talent, and make a man believe he is damn lucky to be anywhere near you." Ah, all better.

Thank God for the redemptive man-power of nice-guy Matt Damon and Ugly Betty's Eric Mabius (a.k.a. Daniel Meade), whose presence in the men-edited section delivers some hope and a dash of humour. I was beginning to think all men really were bastards.

Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel

Shoe therapy

A frivolous 'pretty things' post to end a fairly ordinary day (back with more on magazines/pop culture tomorrow)...

Hey, I put some new shoes on,
and suddenly everything is right,
I said, hey, I put some new shoes on
and everybody's smiling, it's so inviting,
Oh, short on money, but long on time,
slowly strolling in the sweet sunshine,
and I'm running late,
and I don't need an excuse,
'cause I'm wearing my brand new shoes.
- Paolo Nutini, "New Shoes"

Oh, Paolo, your paean to new shoes warms my heart (you really aught watch his film clip on YouTube). I am so easily pleased. I feel exactly the same way when I put on a new pair of pumps – it makes me smile (until the buggers rub the skin on my heels and blisters start to appear and I have to make a stop at the chemist to buy Bandaids – on that note, check out the 'Enchanted Unicorn' Bandages at Fred Flare – and then pretend I'm not in TOTAL AGONY as I strut about the office/walk to the bus stop; thank God for the invention of ballet flats, which can so easily be shoved into your handbag for just such emergencies).

A love of shoes is almost a universal human condition. Okay, I'm sure Tibetan monks and the like don't have the same kind of appreciation for a well-sculpted stiletto, but we cashed-up city folk spend a good deal of time trying and buying new kicks. There are shoes cults, I'm sure.

My own (mild, by comparison, to, say, Carrie Bradshaw) shoe obsession started with Faerie Tale Theater's The Dancing Princesses. It's a beautiful story about five sisters who put on their special shoes and sneak out every night to dance until their feet hurt with handsome suitors in a secret place (like in Eyes Wide Shut with way less kinky action). Each 'princess' had her own shoe colour, which matched her dress. They wore those shoes with such devotion and frequency that they had to be replaced or cobbled (um, repaired) regularly (which makes their father a bit suspicious about what his little girls get up to when he's in the land of nod).

My first real relationship with shoes started with the ballet slipper variety – new ones every six months to accommodate growing feet or examination requirements. I misplaced them all the time, much to the annoyance of my hard-working mother, and quickly learnt to sew the ribbons on (working mother had limited sewing skills, God love her). Of course, there were black Clarks and Doc Martens with yellow stitching at school, Converse high-tops for looking cool, the types I played tennis in and the types I hoped to attract boys wearing (why I ever thought black platform Mary-Janes were a good idea, I do not know – I was 15: Mary-Kate Olsen is sporting similar ones now). My collection has grown steadily since my early 20s (anything before 2000 has been chucked) to include a number of shades (orange, blue, silver, gold, violet...) and styles (peep-toe, pointy-toe, round-toe, stiletto...). I have made friends with a decent shoe repairer and never wear the same pair two days in a row, unless it's particularly freezing outside and I want to wear my vintage Italian boots EVERY DAY with big, fat, ugly, woolly socks underneath. As I like to spread my sartorial dollar around – coats, tee shirts, jeans, jackets – I don't often splurge on new shoes. My last rabid shoe-buying frenzy took place abroad (four pairs on the vintage floor in Topshop; three pairs in Rome) – since then I've purchased two pairs of practical black pumps, a pair of chunky, black strappy heels and some Havaianas. I've lusted after, but not bought, several more (including a pair of black lace-up ankle boots at Tuchuzy in Bondi I really wish I'd at least tried on).

All this shoe-history talk (there is a point!) brings me to a new book shoe lovers will salivate over: New Shoes by Sue Huey and Rebecca Proctor (buy it at amazon.co.uk). This is a tome for Carrie-like girls who are serious about their footwear (unlike me, who owns no Manolos or Choos or Bivianos or Louboutins). It contains specially commissioned photography, illustrations and original design material in a tribute to the craft of shoe making and art of shoe design. The kind of book you can casually leave on your coffee table for friends to admire or in your specially designed walk-in-wardrobe for daily shoe coordination inspiration.

Yours Shoely,
Girl With a Satchel

High hopes for Cleo

Cleo and Cosmo have both undergone revamps this month (seems to be that time of the year for titles worldwide). Both have new columnists. Both are obsessed with MySpace and Facebook.

Reading Nedahl's editor's note in Cleo, I was hopeful. She's bored with celebrity behaviour and ready to make a stance: "Celebs are still a huge part of our world but I think a short break from the current freak show might be the cool drink we've been waiting for. They'll still be in the mag, but when they're doing something relevant, like wearing a cool side pony (p112)... We decided we needed a total makeover (much like Britney does), and we've emerged fresher, newer and with more substance in each issue...".

So, I'm thinking, okay, I'm going to roll with you here. This could be good...

I'm not sure what her definition of 'substance' is (euphemism for 'sensationalism'?), because these are the stories we're served up this month (some I like; others, not so much):

- a piece profiling Lauren Bush ('cause, y'know, she works with the UN). Substance? Tick.

- "Help, I need spending rehab!", a light-hearted story on something quite serious – reckless spending – which is somewhat in conflict of the magazine's biggest selling point: new fashion and trends! Points for a well-written and researched story.

- "Men who rape then post it on the internet" – graphic imagery and sensationalism aside, we should all be aware of the danger of the 'net.

- "What's your relationship deal breaker?" – the intro is a little long-winded (like, get to the point already: journalism school rule #124; as kick-ass as you think your intro is, you should probably cut in in half or out altogether) but I could relate to this story. We have ALL been there – sadly, it usually takes something really bad, rather than common sense/reason/Cleo, to make you see you're dating a swine.

- Jessica Brinton's column, "Rise of the Beta Bloke" (can relate to her dating history).

- "Diet pills ruined my life" – what lengths we women will go to to shift a few pounds without exercise! Worrying that the story features a list of popular diet pills and where/how they're available: it's like telling girls which foods are easiest to throw up.

- "How to survive your own sex scandal", with tacky inclusion of Paris and Pammy pics. Note to self: no video cameras. Ever.

- "Live 100% guilt-free". Great read. Really gets to the crux of Gen-Y angst. Top marks.

- "PMT Hell – what it can do to (normally) sane women" (celebs reveal their PMT tanties)

The salad-light-on-the-substance ones include:

- "Beauty by Brazil" (your guide to looking like a Brazilian supermodel!)

- the eight pages dedicated to Miranda Kerr (as much as I adore her and want her hair)

- "The search for Australia's hottest lifesaver" – eight pages of gratuitous boys-in-boardies shots. Cleo being true to form.

There's also an interview with Kelly Clarkson (love her), the usual beauty pages, a six-page beauty feature dedicated to getting good hair (starring Cheyenne Tozzi, who is blessed with a naturally good mane), pages of the latest fashion trends on leggy models and celebrities, tips on how to get a body like Cameron Diaz (oh, if only it were that easy!), a column by Ajay Rochester answering the question: "Should you tell a friend they need to lose weight?", a story titled "Are you suffering from cobesity?" (i.e. are your friends making you fat?) and pages of 'life' tips telling us what to eat and drink.

Cleo is generally well-intentioned: like your 23-year-old friend who has boy issues, complains about her weight over a glass of beer and is over talking about Paris and Britney but will still pick up a copy of NW to see if there's any new celebrity-train-wreck pics.

The magazine's 'new' more-substance-less-trashy-celebs editorial directive could be the start of a beautiful, hopeful and inspiring new reader relationship. Let's hope she doesn't superficial-out on us too soon.

Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel

P.S. I concur with Notes on Glossy Paper: I am over seeing features about MySpace and Facebook. It was cool for about five minutes.

Teen Vogue makes good

I just about had an asthma attack opening my plastic-wrapped September issue of Teen Vogue, such was the intoxicating smell from the Nina Ricci scent strip inside. But once the waft of perfume passed me by and I began to flick through the 342-odd pages (seriously, any doubt that the title is in trouble can be laid to rest under the squillion advertising pages it has this month – and on that note, does Vogue senior do a buy-one-get-one-free deal with advertisers like Louis Vuitton to get the designer ads in Teen Vogue, I wonder?), I was pleasantly surprised. Because, as you might recall, I wasn't 100 per cent impressed by the content last month... or the month before, namely because of their irresponsible coverage of 'the skinny debate' and Style Blogger Kimball Hasting's self-congratulatory writing style.

Though this cover doesn't do her justice, I like Anne Hathaway. She's wholesome and honest and confesses that people assume she's an idiot because she's nice. I hope she's successful for donkey's years. Then she can rub her wayward contemporaries' faces in her Oscar glory.

The Hot Topic for the month is "Pressure to be sexy". Teen Vogue must have read my mind (granted, the copy for this story was written about two months ago), as Yours Truly wrote a post about the objectification of young women just this past Saturday! How's my smugness (almost as good as Kimball's)? TV covers the topic in its usual anecdotal way – "At first glance, eighteen-year-old Casey's MySpace page seems typical..." – and looks at MySpace, provocative celebrities and competitive sexiness (is there anything those Americans don't compete for?). It ends on a positive note: "I've learned that the boys who are worthwhile aren't necessarily the boys who like scantily clad girls. Now I know I don't have to dress sexily to be sexy, and I'm better off because of it." In addition, "more than 7000 teens declared the Pussycat Dolls to be the least-tastefully-dressed celebrities." Man, those Dolls are such an easy target.

At least Teen Vogue isn't hypocritical with the fashion it presents to its young readers – their style is on the demure-but-fun side, with celebrities like Camilla Belle making the inspirational cut, which is encouraging. However, the ads for Louis Vuitton (starring Scarlett), Guess, Armani Exchange, Chloe, Marc Jacobs and Jill Stuart (starring that exemplary role model Lindsay Lohan), which appear front of book, are totally sexed-up. That's kind of like running anti-smoking editorial next to ads for Winnie Blues. Such is the problem for most magazine editors – in an ideal editorial world, no advertising would be in conflict with the editorial line you're taking.

I love the magazine's new Music Blogger column by Leigh Belz. It's well written, clever and insightful, pulling together all the best new music under a 'Ladies Choice' banner. The Talking Fashions section, edited by Kimball, is a visual treat – girl-of-the-moment Irina Lazareanu, Jamie Burke, celebs in pink frocks, cute girls on the streets of Stockholm. The A-Z Fall Fashion Guide, edited by Jane Keltner, is also fun, though I'm almost sick of seeing and reading about model Agyness Deyn (enough already!), who may be the Teen Vogue equivalent of GWAS's model crush Miranda Kerr (who appears in Cleo this month and you may get sick of hearing about/seeing in this space).

All the trends and people to watch are covered in TV's clever-college-girl way, and there's a celebrity-inspired story on technology addiction, which all makes for flippin' good fun.

Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel

Tough love comes in twos

J.K. Rowling, Hillary Clinton, Nigella Lawson, Naomi Wolf... they're all women who've found success on their own. But the new recipe for career success is to pair up with your best buddy and make some money off dishing out tough love.

Trinny and Susannah (pictured right) of the BBC's What Not to Wear (the real-life Patsy and Edina of British fashion) were profiled in The Weekend Australian Magazine this past Saturday. The two self-described "clothing doctors" have found fame with a series based around telling real women what to wear to flatter their body shapes. A kind of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy for insecure working women and mums. The interesting thing about them is the dynamic – Susannah, a working mother, suffers from mother-guilt and social anxiety, has a natural tendency towards laziness and is prone to panic attacks. Trinny (on right), on the other hand, is manic, a classic workaholic, ambitious, a former alcoholic and "calm on the outside and a flood inside." They're not afraid to use their own bodies to make a point, are champions of affordable female fashion (despite their upper-class heritage), deplore dieting and believe we can all look good if we wear what suits us. It's this common purpose and passion that drives them to keep going (there's a new series, Trinny and Susannah Undress, around the corner, as well as underwear and clothing, and their books have sold well), but it's their complementary natures and friendship that holds the whole thing together. And it's their directness (they will tell a subject if her outfit is "shit") that keeps audiences tuning in.

There's something about the power of a team – of having your friend right there to back you up – that allows a girl to unleash her inner bitch. Just like we might over a cup of coffee at the local mall (which I don't condone, BTW, but have definitely done).

Heather and Jessica (pictured right) from popular blog site GoFugYourself.typepad.com (they have a book in the works and several media connections) post daily bitchy commentary on celebrity fashion faux pas. Celebrities may be easy targets but it takes a good deal of humour and creativity to dish out the critiques every day. As the story goes, the women started the site while they were both working as reality TV producers. They had a conversation one night about how fugly was the new pretty, began posting narky comments about celebrity style choices on their blog for friends and it snowballed from there. They now have up to 200,000 daily visitors. Apparently bitchiness sells...

Which brings me to Skinny Bitch – A No-Nonsense, Tough-Love Guide for Savvy Girls Who Want to Stop Eating Crap and Start Looking Fabulous by Kim Barnouin and Rory Freedman (pictured right), described by The New York Times as a "profanity-laced diet book". Victoria Beckham helped the girls promotion-wise by being photographed carrying her copy (because she, of all people, should be worrying about her weight). Their advice is very in-your-face ("Soda is liquid Satan"; "You are a total moron if you think the Atkins diet will make you thin"), to the point of being rude, and the 'diet' they prescribe is vegan, so not for everyone. From my experience, cutting anything you enjoy, and your body needs, out of your diet does, in fact, turn you into a bitch (a hungry, irritable, bread-craving bitch), so it's your call whether you want to be thin and snarky (and friendless) or happily-unravenous (not sure unravenous is a word, but it's my blog...).

The only real issue I have with all these women (because, in all honesty, I find them funny, and love to see women at the height of their success and creativity) is, would they be quite so confidently bitchy without their sidekicks, and are they creating a culture of cruelty to be emulated in school halls around the world? Are they glorifying – or 'glamourising' – meanness? Shows like America's Next Top Model are already doing a great job of keeping young girls' self-esteem in check.

No doubt Oprah wouldn't be where she is today without Gayle, but then they've never sat on the couch together and torn a celeb to shreds to humour an audience.

Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel

The foxymorons are back

Return to our screens on August 19, 7.30pm, Channel 7!



Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel

P.S. Another visual treat: I love this postcard from the Red Zero team. When's the next flight to Vanuatu?

Do all good girls go bad?

I love Rihanna's catchy "Umbrella" tune. When it comes on Video Hits on a Saturday morning, I find myself ditching my breakfast to bust a move on front of the teev (hoping Husband will not get out of bed and see my enthusistic display). Despite it being totally danceable, the lyrics (co-written by Jay-Z and "The Dream") are also quite sweet:

"When the sun shines
We’ll shine together
Told you I'll be here forever
Said I'll always be your friend
Took an oath
I'mma stick it out 'till the end
Now that it's raining more than ever
Know that we still have each other
You can stand under my Umbrella..."

Despite the mushy lyrics, 'sweetness' isn't the first word that comes to mind when I see 19-year-old Rihanna artfully dancing around with her umbrella, dressed in fish-net stockings and black leather.

Miss Rihanna, whose album is titled Good Girl Gone Bad, isn't the first star to openly exploit her new-found sexuality by way of a provocative film clip. For Christina Aguilera it was "Dirrty"; for Britney "Slave 4 U". Rihanna's not breaking any ground here. But in the era of Bratz dolls and Pussycat Dolls, you've got to wonder what kind of message Rihanna's clip is sending out to young girls. Do grown girls all get around in their knickers? Will boys like me if I dance like a stripper?

Teen sexuality, and the way it's expressed, is a vexed issue – something parents fear, teachers gloss over and churches attempt to control. These days, it's further complicated by social networking systems. Back in the mid-90s, when I first started to notice boys, you would start hanging out on the basis of proximity (dating someone who lived close by or went to the same school), attraction (lack of facial acne = big plus) and general interest (they knew some of the same people or had a similar hobby). You'd meet boys at friends' parties, through their older brothers, in church youth groups (I suppose; back then I wasn't much of a church-goer), at the beach or on the school bus. These days kids hook up on the basis of MySpace profiles and pictures (which are often Photoshopped or posed provocatively).

The question of sex – when to start doing it, who with and why – is even more complex. Teen sexual experimentation is nothing new (just look at 1981 Bruce Beresford flick Puberty Blues). That's not to say the majority of teen girls aren't smart, carefully weighing up their decisions about when to 'go there' despite the pressures of raging hormones, more 'advanced' (or easily led) friends, and that all-encompassing quest to be cool. We also have groups of Christian teens pledging their virginity till marriage (and their parents sighing relief).

My own teens were a flurry of 'pash and dash's' and relationships with young boys who didn't know any better. Had my parents known what I was up to, I'm sure they would have locked me up in a tower Rapunzel-style. But you get away with a lot when your school results are good and you say 'please' and 'thank you'. In hindsight, had I established my own 'value code' earlier on (as you know, I rediscovered Christianity a few years ago now), and stuck to it, I would have saved myself a lot of heartache, regret, misdirected energy and misused brain space. Teen brains are oft not equipped to deal with the complications of intimacy.

The Saturday Sydney Morning Herald yesterday published a feature story on teen sex – 'Let's talk about sleepovers' by Julie Szego. According to the story, teens are 'claiming' each other, which is basically lay-bying someone you're interested in but shopping around on the side (it seems today's teens have too much choice, in every way, and bore easily). They're also embarking on sexual exploration earlier (the average 'first time' age now being 16).

The 'raunch culture' created by Paris Hilton and her posse, hip-hop film clips and singers like Rihanna, who quite literally wear their sexual desirability (think Fergie's midriff tops, Paris's thigh-scraping dresses and Britney's cleavage-enhancing halter tops) has definitely had an effect on girls. And the guys who date them. In the SMH story, one boy says: "Those [girls] who don't act raunchy and everything, well, it's not that they get ostracised, but people aren't as willing to go out with them to parties and stuff... It's a bit of a Catch-22 for girls; you're judged if you do things, and you're judged if you don't." Further in the article, a school counsellor says: "I've seen girls presenting themselves as promiscuous on their MySpace profile and then taking on that persona in reality... they'll change their behaviour to suit their profile if they think they're getting a lot of kudos." Another school counsellor interviewed by Szego says some girls are basing their self-esteem on "serious" relationships, becoming dependent on the guys they date.

Remember the Sex and the City episode where Carrie takes her 25-year-old protoge to a book party, then later discovers she's a virgin? "Is this supposed to be shocking, wagging one's (rude word) at every good-looking stud who walks by? Please!" says the 25-year-old to a perplexed Carrie. Casual relationships were de rigeur for Carrie and her pals. The female quest for the perfect man (or even a flawed one who would just love you, exclusively) was, of course, the driving force for the show (and Carrie's weekly sex and relationships column for The New York Star). But I think that the positive role of female friendship, rather than how far flagrant promiscuity (worn with Manolo Blahnik shoes) will take you, was the more empowering message the series had to offer.

Young women should be educated about their sexuality, what it means to be a woman and self respect. They need parents, teachers and role models (young female celebrities like America Ferrera, Anne Hathaway, Mandy Moore and Amanda Bynes dress demurely and shy away from the popular LA clubbing scene) to interpret the messages the media at large is sending them about how to represent themselves (after all, cute and smart is just as alluring to boys and men than sexy and flippant). There should also be an emphasis on the establishment of values, whether they be Christian-based, family or other guiding moral principles, with which they can more confidently make decisions, sexual or otherwise.

Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel

Harper's and Cleo

According to the fashion coverage in the September issue of Australian Harper's Bazaar, the Bazaar reader is an international lady who wants to run with the European fashion pack, ignoring the reality of her country's polar opposite climatic habits – namely, she wants to read about fall fashion even while the local stores are filling their shelves with the lilacs, peaches, yellows and blues of spring. To her, apparently, black fitted suits, opaque tights and fur are of the moment. Never mind it will soon be 25 degrees and climbing outside.

This must be such an ongoing frustration for Australian fashion editors who can never quite coordinate their editorial with the scheduled international shows – if only the spring/summer ready-to-wear shows were held six weeks earlier, they might make the October/November spring issues at the least, but then what would you have left to report on come next year? Such a conundrum. Premature wrinkling at the thought of it.

Meanwhile, over the other side of the equator, UK Harper's and Queen – (recently awarded Consumer Magazine of the Year by the Periodical Publisher's Association, ahead of Vogue and the ever-popular Grazia) is getting a makeover of sorts, changing its name to 'Harper's Bazaar' (thanks for the tip-off Ondolady). Ian Burrell from The Independent reports that rival publishers are saying "Harpers is a magazine with an identity crisis – the pampered posh girl who is trying to hide her roots and be taken seriously as a true fashionista." Its place in the UK magazine market has previously been next to high-society title Tatler but it now wants to position itself as having superior fashion, arts, features, travel and beauty editorial (a bit like, um, Vogue), with the added chutzpah of celebrity (ooh, original). The magazine's 36-year-old editor, Lucy Yeomans, told the Scotsman of the re-branding exercise: "Introducing this powerful international fashion brand to the UK market is an opportunity second to none. In keeping with the brand's rich history we will continue to attract the best writers, thinkers and photographers." The re-design is also attracting ads from Topshop, something the title has never had before. A sign of the mag's dumbing down or shaking off the shackles of snobbery in favour of high-street inspired egalitarianism? The 'Swarovski crystal' September issue features 17-year-old face of Burberry Georgia Frost on its cover (patriotic), while a website will launch later in the year (way to roll!).

Meanwhile, today's Australian reported that Cleo magazine is giving itself an image overhaul of sorts, too. From next month it will feature models on its covers (in a nod to Cleo's Aussie-girl-next-door heritage, the first will be 'celebrity model' Miranda Kerr), in order to differentiate itself from other young women's titles, like Cosmopolitan (good timing since there's slim pickings in the young female celebrity covermodel market right now, given Lindsay, Paris and Nicole have all fallen from grace: Mischa seems to have survived the scrum, however, gracing the August covers of Cleo, Dolly and Marie Claire). However, if the September cover bombs (the issue goes on sale on Monday), we may see a return to celebrity covers. Editor Nedahl Stelio told The Australian:

"It isn't to say we'll never use celebrities again... It is a definite risk. But it's one we are prepared to take... Cleo readers still have to aspire to be [the cover model] and aspire to her lifestyle. But it's about time someone did something different. Celebrities are so overexposed, it's getting boring. It's ridiculous the amount of stuff we know about them, from what they eat for breakfast to ... how they like their sex. Models have an air of mystery about them."

Given that Cleo is in part responsible for how much we know about young female celebrities (Perez Hilton can shoulder the rest of the blame!), it all seems a bit "too little, too convenient" – market forces and global glossy trends, rather than an earnest attempt to create positive role modelling, is likely at play. But I think they've hit a winner with Kerr – she's gorgeous, her face is everywhere, her boyfriend is hot and she has an apartment in New York – very aspirational to the Cleo reader, indeed. Looking forward to checking it out.

Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel

Fashionista fiesta!

Devoted fashion fiends not satiated by their monthly glossy fix, Go Fug Yourself visits, nightly Fashion TV viewings and weekend market trawling have two new online playgrounds to visit...

– The Fashionista Diaries series has made its online debut (for a great rundown, see the review on themusingsofondolady.blogspot.com). The gist is this: six ambitious twentysomething interns are placed within three fashion-related businesses (PR, Jane magazine, Flirt Cosmetics) where they're expected to prove their worth and possibly land jobs (good luck landing one at Jane, eh!). You can subscribe to watch the show online at soapnet.go.com (hello, new lunchtime pastime). The website itself is worth a visit for some of its features, including information on 'how to land your dream job' by each of the 'Players' (including Jane's Brandon Holley).

– StyleMob.com is a relatively new social networking site for those who take much pride in putting together their outfits every day – and want the world to know it (working in an office where new clothes – particularly those bought overseas or on UrbanOutfitters.com – garner more attention than the day's political news, I can see how this would appeal). It's Facebook for fashionistas and urban hipsters. And it's really very cute. Users upload pictures of themselves and info on where they got their garb, and others comment on their look. "StyleMob lets someone define their style and also get help from peers," says site co-founder Sasha Cagen. Given the popularity of sites like The Sartorialist and Facehunter, whose subjects are left to the discretion of the photographers, StyleMob is sure to be popular amongst those who see daily dressing as an artform to be appreciated by the world at large (mum's nod of approval simply doesn't cut the mustard). Any site that promotes fashion for real people is worth a click.

Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel

Glossy bits

While I'm as happy as a kid on a Harry Potter high to have received the Last Issue Ever of Jane via priority mail from the US today, my fellow bloggers are all over the recently released September issues of all the US glossies, making for a tonne of interesting online reads. If I had, say, a spare ten minutes, I would definitely click on:

Glossed Over - glossedover.com/glossed_over/ – witty, insightful and sometimes vitriolic (the tagline is "vanity, vitriol, and fashion magazines") glossy commentary by an anonymous US fashion editor.

Jezebel.com – no holds barred commentary from prickly comedic third-wave feminists.

Go Fug Yourself – see all the covers, from W (Gwyneth) to Elle (right), and wet your pants over their comments.

According to Fashion Week Daily, September's cover subjects can be split into three distinct and highly technical categories: blonde, brunette and blondes and brunettes.

The Blondes:
Harper’s Bazaar: Kate Hudson
Marie Claire: Ashley Olsen
Vogue: Sienna Miller
Allure: Britney Spears
In Style: Gwen Stefani
W: Gwyneth Paltrow

The Brunettes:
Lucky: Sarah Michelle Gellar
Cosmopolitan: Jessica Alba
Redbook: Brooke Shields
Vanity Fair: Gisele Bündchen
Seventeen: Ashlee Simpson
Cookie: Angie Harmon
Elle: Lindsay Lohan
Teen Vogue: Anne Hathaway

The Blondes & Brunettes:
Glamour: Claire Danes, Mariska Hargitay, and Queen Latifah
CosmoGIRL!: Ashley Tisdale and Zac Efron

Though, as Ondo Lady points out, the hair colour of these celebs (particularly of La Lohan) changes more often than a baby's nappy.

I'm loving the latest US Glamour. It's chunky and packed full of good reads – more energy on less sleep; are you crazy or smart in love; should you take the Pill to stop your periods for good? – and fashion/beauty inspiration. The features on women in their 20s, 30s and 40s puts things in perspective – though seeing a gorgeous model digitally un-enhanced to show us what she'll look like in her 40s doesn't make me feel any better about the deep wrinkles and sun spots I'm looking forward to (note to self: wear SPF daily from tomorrow!).

I'm also more interested in previewing looks for spring/summer than for 'Fall' right now, being a southern hemisphere girl and all. I can't wait for the spring/summer 08/09 shows to kick off in early September – and the knock-offs to appear in Sportsgirl just weeks later!

Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel

P.S. I'm tempted to buy this book – What Happy Women Know by Dan Baker Ph.D and Cathy Greenberg Ph.D, as previewed in Glamour – on amazon.com tomorrow. I know, I know, more positive psychology babble, but, y'know, how cute is the spotty cover (I'm feeling happier already!)?

P.P.S. Apologies for the fat images in my sidebar (it's not your eye-sight): Blogger is wigging out on me.

P.P.P.S. Back with more mag reviews tomorrow!

Disorderly behaviour

Dear loyal GWAS reader,

A quick FYI: As Husband has acquired a brand spanking new Mac for our home office, I shall be posting at night, which, in turn, means the more I yabber on to you, the less cuddles he gets – I shall therefore endeavour to keep things succinct (which really benefits you anyway, no?)!

Anyhoo, I have just been watching Insight on SBS. It's a brilliant program. Host Jenny Brockie (a Gold Walkley Award winner for excellence in journalism and 20-odd years experience in broadcast journalism, no less) is a first-class act, mediating between the studio guests better than Oprah (and with far less interjecting with relatable stories of personal experience with BFF Gale). Tonight's topic: 'Starving For Answers', which addressed eating disorders: "the trends, the science, the treatments."

What I coincidence, I thought! Not only has disorderly eating been a journalistic passion of mine, I was also intending to blog about a truly excellent book that any girl in her twenties, and her mother, should read – Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters – The Frightening New Normality of Hating Your Body by 27-year-old American journalist Courtney E. Martin (who is quite possibly the Naomi Wolf of Gen Y).

One of Australia's foremost experts on eating disorders, Dr Jenny O'Dea, was part of tonight's Insight panel. I've interviewed her before and was knocked over by her common sense-approach and pure passion for the subject. She's just undertaken a massive survey of 9,000-odd school-age children (2006) and found the occurence of eating disorders and disorderly eating (i.e. dieting, over-exercise, laxative abuse) has increased substantially since 2002. With all the media-fuelled paranoia about obesity and the subsequent in-school programs, etc., it's no wonder kids are thinking about food a little differently than they did before (say, like, when we were kids: the odd sausage roll and ice-cream was unconsciously worked off with games of chasies around the asphalt playgrounds; not with sessions at the gym – life was simpler then).

The main causes of eating disorders, as identified by the program's esteemed panel, which also included child psychologist Kenneth Nunn and Susan Sawyer from the Royal Children's hospital, are a genetic predisposition towards depression and anxiety, a lack of proper life coping mechanisms (or did I just make that up?), perfectionism (which Martin delves deeply into throughout her book), competitiveness, and a desire to control one's circumstances (which, as a little lady of God, I know is really not possible – the more control you try to exert over your world, the more messed up/out of control it seems to become!).

There were three women on the panel – two teens, a girl in her mid-20s and lady in her 60s – who all shared their experience of living with an eating disorder. Proving EDs are not merely the domain of teens, Danielle Kent developed an eating disorder at age 24. She had finished her uni degree and was working in a good job when the symptoms started to kick in. She puts it down to her will to control – everything in her life was seemingly good (educated, good job, stable relationship), yet she felt she could lose it all in an instant. She became self-focussed and though people started to compliment her on her shrinking figure (such a no no!), she withdrew from social events and stopped catching up with friends – so all-consuming was her fear of food. She says she felt like a horrible friend and daughter. These negative feelings just further fuelled the problem. Every day to her felt like groundhog day – regimented eating of the same foods, excessive exercise. She couldn't concentrate at work. My Lord, I thought, I had/have a scary lot in common with this girl, and I'm sure my sister and some friends could identify with her, too.

Eating disorders suck at your brain – gorgeous, smart, clever and ambitious young women are practically paralysed by them, like caged mice stuck on a running wheel. Martin's book (which you should definitely buy on amazon.com – I shall find out the Australian publishing details, though) delves into the minds and hearts of young women, mostly in the US college system, who've either experienced full-blown eating disorders or who, like Martin, teeter on the edge of developing one.

Thankfully, Martin does offer words of hope. Overcoming or avoiding an eating disorder may come down to feeding your spiritual hunger (that be the God thing – whatever flavour of spirituality you may choose, you need something bigger than you guiding you in life; we're all just little girls deep down, looking for approval in all the wrong places). It's also about giving yourself permission to mess up. And finding a way to think of food as fuel for your body (food is not the enemy). It is okay to be vulnerable and ask for help. There's a better way to live, which includes sampling the smorgasbord of amazing food out there and not worry about what it will do to your waist line. We all JUST WANT TO BE NORMAL about food; yet we stray far from the norm when it comes to the expectations we put on our bodies. Perfect, schmerfect.

The funding for eating disorder programs in Australia is abysmal. This is something that needs to be addressed. I also worry that if we, as a generation (hello, Ys!), can't pull this thing together (this thing we have in our heads about food and dieting and being perfect), our daughters may just suffer the consequences. I was talking to a colleague today who says a friend of hers forbids her daughter to eat bread and has convinced her she's allergic to lollies, to protect her from the weight issues she experienced herself as a teen. ALARM BELLS! Our mothers have a huge role to play in our self-perception – in those developmental years, they are our first true role models. If they're dieting and avoiding carbs, what does that say to an eight-year-old? That mummy is normal? Then are all those other hamburger-munching mummies whacko?

We have a responsibility to get right about eating and health, for the sake of the little girls we'll all be bringing into the world.

Wow, I have so totally blown out that whole 'succinct' thing: poor Husband.

Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel

Secret girls' business

You know summer's on its way (at least in Retail Land) when the ads on TV turn from hot-chocolate to skin firming cream; from office workers breathing in cuppa-soup fumes, into Jennifer Hawkins negotiating flights of stairs in a thigh-high flouncy yellow dress.

Switching between Australian Idol and Ugly Betty on Sunday night, it wasn't only Hawko who caught my (and Husband's) attention: the new Bonds 'Kaleidoscope' ad is a visual fiesta (20-odd bouncing bums and sets of boobs) in celebration of summer and the female form, though not in a 'Dove Real Beauty' thigh-dimples-are-hot kind of way. None of those Bonds girls have wiggly wobbly bits to worry about. But nor do they look anaemic or too thin – slightly rounded bellies and boundless energy make these chicks look like good health personified; like they survive on whole foods and sunshine. While Bond girls are sexy, Bonds girls are fun-loving. Heck, I'm gonna pop straight into Myer and buy me some of that colourful cotton (that would equal ad success for Bonds)!

We Aussies have always preferred a healthy look – the kind of girl who looks like she could swim for an hour without signalling to be rescued and run the Bondi-to-Bronte without passing out from fatigue. Hawko, DJs' Megan Gale, the controversy-prone Lara Bingle, the Tozzi sisters, Getaway girl Natalie Gruzlewski and The Great Outdoors' Shelley Craft are arguably good body role models. They love their exercise, and look fit and toned, but eschew crazy weight-loss diets. And men love them.

It's arguably just as hard to look fit and healthy as it is to look supermodel-thin: anyone can skip a meal (please don't EVER) but toned thighs require some serious workout sessions. Hawko, for example, is a gym junkie and loves her outdoor sport, while Gruzlewski gets her incidental workouts running about the place filming scenes for Getaway. For the average girl working a 9-5 job, when most hours are spent with bum on seat, or cramming uni study in between part-time work, it's near impossible to dedicate the time to working out that these aspirational Aussies put in. The answer? Eat as healthily as you can and try to do some form of exercise every day (walking to the vending machine doesn't count) – we can only do our best. Fake tan can do the rest!

May the self-confidence be with you!

Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel

P.S. The music from the Bonds ad is super-catchy. The 411? It's "Marina Gasolina" by Bonde do Role (classed as "Baile Funk" music – i.e. 'Funky Party'; a mix of "Brazilian funk, Miami bass, electro and punk", as described on bonds.com.au). You can download the track at bonds.com.au, but be quick – Bonds are offering only 1000 free mp3s. You can also view the add, directed by Alex Smith (his profile is also online), and a 'Making of the Ad' clip. The wonders of video streaming!

License to dress really cute

Not even Robin Williams could save this film from its unfunniness. In fact, his character, Reverend Frank, is to blame for much of its unfunny moments and cringe-worthy dialogue. I'm sorry, but a Reverend, no matter how 'cool' he is, would not use sexual innuendo in conversation, like, "So, Ben, what have you been doing, besides little Sadie here?". Ew. Not funny.

The movie's biggest flaw is its premise: couple date for six months, man proposes to girl at her parents' 30th anniversary party, girl accepts, couple have choice between getting married at designated church in two years or three weeks (first available dates), girl nonchalantly chooses three weeks, church Reverend wants couple to undergo a three-week intensive marriage course, Reverend resorts to such things as bugging the couples' bedroom, giving them fake babies to nurse (ugliest fake babies ever) and encouraging them to publicly lash out at each other in order to test their true love, couple begins to feel the strain... yadda yadda yadda.

There's some clever dialogue, mostly given to male lead John Krasiniski (poor, talented Mandy Moore dips out here) but it's not enough to save the comedically weak scenes and overall 'as if' factor. This is one very average rom-com. Its only saving grace (for me, anyway) is the very cute wardrobe sported by Mandy Moore. A movie can stink like a rotten banana in the bottom of a school bag but if the wardrobe is hot, and inspires a girl clothing or makeup-wise, it almost makes it worthy of the $15 ticket price.

Moore has perfect hair throughout, with just the right amount of volume and careful placement of accessories, her eye makeup is stand-out (think the perfect smoky eye) and her outfits are demure but cute (what I imagine she'd wear in real life; think dresses with boots and tights, preppy blazers, peasant tops with jeans...).

Another distraction was Christine Taylor (Zoolander, The Wedding Singer, The Brady Bunch Movie, wife of Ben Stiller), who plays Moore's sister – she appears to have been hit with the Rachel Zoe stick (the stick-thin stick). Next to the voluptuous, glowy Moore, 36-year-old Taylor looks to have the body of a 12-year-old and tired face of someone who deprives her body of carbs. Methinks once you hit that 30 milestone, in particular, it's time to think more about your face and less about the size of your waist, though I'm sure there's much pressure in Hollywood to do otherwise.

Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel

NY models, Oz campaigns

So there I am thinking, 'Man, this weather sux... Why have these jeans gone so saggy in the butt?... I just want to crawl up on my couch and eat Thai food...', when along came the latest Seafolly catalogue featuring Aussie model Miranda Kerr (Victoria's Secret/Portmans/Maybelline).

Pictures like this...

...made me sad about letting my winter exercise regime lapse somewhat, but then life's to short to be thinking about that (esp. since I intend to eat lollies in about five minutes). What makes me happy is seeing so many young Aussie models, like Kerr, fronting local ad campaigns.

For years we've had to contend with the odd Elle McPherson appearance (to call her 'Aussie' is a bit of a joke), Megan Gale (who's really more popular in Italy than here) and Miss Universe Jennifer Hawkins (God love her). But now a new crop of internationally successful young models are lending their model-cred, time and faces to selling us home-grown goods (as apposed to Prada).

Exhibit B: Elyse Taylor for David Jones...

Taylor is DJs' new ambassador for young designers, a position once held by Cheyenne Tozzi...

Who is now a face for Just Jeans (and rumoured to be seeing Mischa's ex Brandon Davis) and will also walk for David Jones' summer launch next week.

Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel

P.S. Girlfriend 2006 Model Search winner Amy Fromm has won a one-year contract as the face of Myer Miss Shop (a.k.a. 'Junior Jen Hawkins').

Magazine Awards

Pacific Magazines CEO Nick Chan should be a very happy man today after learning of his company's clean sweep of last night's Magazine Publishers of Australia Awards held at Fox Studios and hosted by funny guys The Chaser (FYI, Chan has been appointed Chairman of the MPA).

Stalwart weekly title New Idea took home awards for Editor of the Year (Robyn Foyster), General Excellence, General Interest/News and Magazine of the Year 2007.

The publisher tally includes:

Pacific Magazines - 10 awards (New Idea, Girlfriend, Marie Claire, Total Girl, Men's Health)
EMAP Australia - 5 awards (FHM, New Woman, Empire, Zoo Weekly and Australasian Dirtbike)
ACP - 4 awards (thanks to The Bulletin, who won three of them; Wheels won 'Cover of the Year')

The highlights for me:

- Former Murdoch Magazines owner Matt Handbury accepting an award for 'Outstanding Contribution to the Magazine Industry' before launching into a polemic about the state of Australian magazines and their potential to increase ad share to equal their US counterparts (read his article for The Australian on the subject here), before hinting he may re-enter the magazine publishing fray.
- The venerable Laurie Oakes accepting his award for Columnist of the Year.
- Marina Go's glamour (think white fur chubby, shiny satin skirt, fabulous black heels).
- Julia Zaetta's acceptance speech for Better Homes and Gardens' General Excellence, Home & Food award. From the awkward entrance (she's suffering a leg injury but wore six-inch heels), to dropping an F-bomb, to quick quips with the Chaser boys and an impassioned speech about the magazine she edits, it was gold. Funny, funny lady.
- Girlfriend's win for Editorial Initiative of the Year (Girlfriend* Bans Bullying).
- The mini hot dogs, hamburgers and pies on offer and the amazing rice paper rolls I chased around the room.

There is certainly a sense in the industry that the tide is turning – that a Packer-less ACP has lost its way; too caught up with bottom-line results and not concerned enough with its staff, readers and innovation. Pacific is making ground, particularly with the recent acquisition of the Time Inc. titles (Who, Bride to Be...) but ACP won't go down without a fight. It's still a mighty force to be reckoned with. Then again, Seven did crash tackle Nine in the ratings war.

Some pics from the event...

L to R: Amy Richardson, Liz North, Sarah Oakes and Yours Truly.

L to R: Liz North, Bec Whish, Amy Richardson and Yours Truly.

Have a great weekend!

Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel



*I may work for this title.

Jane, Gwen and Marie Claire

Poor Jane. In the same way the publishing industry is notorious for pushing out under-performing editors, Jane, barely gone a month, is being slowly replaced by younger and more glamorous models. Kinda like Leo DiCaprio's relationship history.

Not only is the very un-Jane Glamour magazine being unashamedly pimped to former Jane readers on janemag.com, Fashion Week Daily reported yesterday that CosmoGirl! will replace Jane in the Soapnet/Disney Buena Vista Productions series The Fashionista Diaries. The reality series follows six assistants as they try to make it in the fashion, beauty and publishing industries. The Daily says the two assistants from Jane, Rachel Jacoby and Andrew Kanakis, have been reassigned to CosmoGirl! under editor Susan Schulz. Jane will reportedly feature in the first six episodes and the magazine's closure will be covered on the show. Cue clapping hands from Deborah Blackwell of Soapnet, who told The Daily; "When real life interferes with reality TV, it makes for great television. No one could have anticipated that the closure of Jane magazine would become part of the show's plot and that we'd have a new player enter the scene." Never mind that a whole bunch of talented designers and writers lost their jobs – this is what great TV is made of!

Further to the above, WWD reports that Jane founding editor Jane Pratt is in talks with Gwen Stefani to launch a women's lifestyle title: "The title would be part of a bigger multimedia play by Stefani's label, Interscope Records, and would include book and online components." Out with the old and in with the new, eh! The ambitious Pratt never misses an opportunity – or the opportunity to create an opportunity. We should encourage this, I suppose. Men are always capitalising – take Rupert Murdoch, for example.

Meanwhile, it may not have the same spunk as Jane, but the new, eco-conscious issue of Marie Claire* Australia is worth its $7.95 cover price. Husband had to massage my neck last night after I schlepped all 316 pages of it home on the bus (don't worry, gentlemen, I don't need a seat!).

This bumper issue contains the following highlights (note that I'm not into the Crime Reports and tend to skip over the "naughty features" on such things as porn – like this month's cyber-porn story on Second Life and the four-page feature on nanna-aged porn stars – because, frankly, I don't need this crap in my life/brain). Back to the more positive highlights:

• an 11-page pictorial feature celebrating Dior;
• a five-page relationships feature on women who earn more than their partners (Apsara, page 56, is one of the most gorgeous people working in advertising – nicest girl ever and her boyfriend works with people suffering mental illness);
• a four-page feature by Anna Saunders on nine women who all wore the same dress (not exactly the same dress; but the same style by the same designer) to their wedding;
• an 'emotional' piece profiling Kinneret Chaya Boosany, who was left disfigured by a suicide bomber (bastard);
• a five-page feature by features editor Jessica Parry on the Sydney housing market (intelligent, well written, depressing);
• a 'society' piece on the now-offline website SocialiteRank.com, and the issues (say this word like Kath and Kim) it caused between Tinsley Mortimer and Olivia Palermo (juicy fun);
• an odd 'world report' on the methods women use to counter stress (i.e. jellyfish watching);
• a confessional piece interviewing three women about their sexless relationships;
• a candid interview with Angelina Jolie;
• the usual film, book and music reviews (which appear to be more comprehensive);
• a new page devoted to 'culture' (dance, photography, theatre, opera);
• oodles of fashion pages, including a nine-page autumn/winter 2007/08 runway report;
• gorgeous fashion spreads, like 'Mini Break', 'New-Season Style' (it's so cute) and 'White Mischief' (the model looks Parisian);
• the fantastic and always fresh-looking 101 ideas pages (so much style inspiration in so few pages);
• shopping pages devoted to the puff-sleeve dress, the cropped jacket, the waisted skirt, the skinny trousers, the smock top and the smart short (the layouts are brilliant);
• gorgeous and fun single fashion pages like 'Star style steals for under $150';
• an eco-conscious fashion page;
• an eco lifestyle special (see the 'insider guide', eco lifestyle news pages and eco lifestyle advisor);
• pages of amazing food, still under the 'eco' banner;
• an eco travel special;
• a first-person account of cervical cancer;
• '7 Myths About Your Salad' (and I wanted to order a salad for lunch!);
• a time-saving story on how to get an extra 6 1/2 hours out of your day (sign me up!);
• and Jane Russel's 'life story.'
  

Heartier than a beef stew. Heavier than a sack of bricks.

• a lengthy hair feature and story on budget beauty buys and pages of new beauty products you probably don't need but can dream about;

Go buy it.

Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel

*Marie Claire is owned by my employer, Pacific Magazines.

P.S. The Australian magazine industry's night of nights, the MPA Awards, is on tonight.

P.P.S. A few favourite pages...

Save the tweens!

Australian tween title Total Girl has just launched a campaign, 'I Can Make A Difference', to, as editor Sarah Cornish says:

"Give readers practical advice on how they can actually contribute to making the world better, by providing tips and expert advice to inspire readers to make a difference to the environment, their school, their local community, their friends and family, to animals and wildlife."

Campaign ambassadors are 'motivation coach'/swimmer Libby Lenton and red-lipstick-loving duo The Veronicas.

This is a great initiative. Anything that encourages our tweens to practise selflessness, compassion and kindness towards others/the world, is a very good thing. Coz from little girls, big girls grow – and if you're exposed to these kinds of social ideas early on, there's a good chance you won't become a self-obsessed, shopaholic like Paris Hilton – or get around in fish nets like the Pussycat Dolls, Rihanna and Britney Spears, right?

Life's not all about Bratz dolls, pink clothes and looking pretty, durr. There are puppies to be saved from the pound, berrylicious puddings to be made for Mum and Dad, shy girls to make friends with and rubbish to clean up!

Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel

Lunch time bliss

I'm a firm believer in escaping from the office during one's lunch break. Today I walked up the street and plonked myself on a park bench. This is what I saw...

Ah, Sydney.

Sadly, Pacific Magazines is scheduled to move from the salubrious surrounds of McMahons Point to Redfern next year.

Sigh.

Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel

Your can't-live-without mag

While Kristie Clements' column in the past weekend's edition of The Sunday Magazine was a glorified advertorial for Vogue's September issue (on sale today – Australia's Next Top Model winner Alice B is on the cover), I quite enjoyed Sophie Lee's latest rant. Lee launches in with this:

"I was recently asked to name the one thing I can't live without. It was for the sake of a publicity quiz, but it had me thinking. Barring the obvious responses – my children, the Workaholic [this be her husband], my vision-impaired bulldog – there's a certain little something that fits the bill."

Ooh, good hook. What is it?

"Mine is not a sophisticated answer. It's not an iPod or a pair of stiletto boots to which I afford this status. Nor is it a pair of aviator sunglasses, truffle-infused olive oil or an electric cheese grater."

Okay, we're glad it's not a cheese grater. But what is it?

"No, the one thing I simply can't live without is a humble US magazine called Entertainment Weekly."

Gee, that was painful – I mean, suspenseful. But we're feeling good now. Lee is a magazine addict just like us! She goes on to explain why she has been devoted to the title for 10 years (it makes her happy; "it has all the latest information about films, TV, theatre, books and more"; "it has two brilliant movie reviewers, great television commentary, always provides intelligent coverage of the annual global film festivals and Stephen King himself is a contributing writer"; it gives her insider knowledge on box office tallies; and it keeps her connected to who she was – i.e. a quite successful actress) and tells us of several fruitless attempts to renew her highly prized airmail subscription (they offer her a pallid surface mail subscription instead – hello, six-week delay!).

This kind of insatiable appetite for magazines is obviously not unique to Lee (glossy addiction is widespread, particularly for those of us working in, or hoping to work in, the industry). However, her devotion to a single title is what got me thinking.

According to Nielsen media/MPA research, we Aussies buy, on average, 21 magazines per year, making us the biggest magazine consumers, per capita, in the world (FYI, unlike the States, our newsstand sales account for about 90% of all mag sales). We chew through magazines like sausages in the summer.

Given I'm responsible for approximately 10 per cent of the nation's magazine consumption (skewing the above statistic), am given to Random Purchases of Magazines (a.k.a. RPMs) on an almost daily basis, and, of course, that this blog is kind of based on reviewing glossies, narrowing down my choice of reading material to just ONE magazine is almost an impossible task. First my (long) shortlist:

The Shortlist
UK Elle (the fashion, the wit, the shoots, the inherent coolness)
Marie Claire Australia (the smarts, the feminism, the features, the Australian fashion)
Vogue Australia (the features, the arts pages, the fashion news)
US Glamour (the features, the feel-good factor, the women's issues)
UK Glamour (the fashion, the beauty)
Madison (the fashion, the features)
Frankie (the Gen-Y view, the features)
Jane (back issues: boo, sheds tear)
Teen Vogue (the fashion, the teen factor – research!)
Nylon (the hipster view, the 'new' factor – bands, labels, people)
Vanity Fair (challenges my glossy-fied intellect)
The Sunday Magazine, Sunday Telegraph (the features, the fashion, the beauty, the columns, the humour...)
Sunday Life, Sun-Herald (the features, the recipes)
Good Weekend, The Saturday Sydney Morning Herald (the columns, the features, 'The Two of Us')
The Sydney Magazine (the parochial view, the fashion, the columns, the reviews)
Famous (at a stretch – a girl's got to have a bit of celebrity trashiness in her life)

Gawd, what have I forgotten? And why am I so beholden to so many mags who share so much of the same content? I am now going to eliminate any magazine that has ever made me feel like crap, any mag in which I have read the same content elsewhere, any magazine that costs more than it's worth (farewell my treasured UK Elle – unfair, I know, because you travel so far, but you cost me $19.95!) and the US/UK mags because I'm patriotic.

To make the below cut, the magazine has to add something to my life, possibly enhance my thinking capacity/IQ and/or knowledge of new things, and make me care about things other than myself. It's a tough ask.

The (shorter) shortlist
Marie Claire Australia
The Sunday Magazine, Sunday Telegraph
Sunday Life, Sun-Herald
Good Weekend, The Saturday Sydney Morning Herald

Jane would have made the cut if it wasn't six feet under.

And if I had to pick just one from this list, it would probably be...

Lee's own Sunday Magazine.

Why? There's a bit of celebrity, a bit of humour, a bit of good will, some beauty advice, clever features, nice fashion spreads, newsy tidbits and it costs $1.60!

Plus, I can get everything else I need online.

What is your can't-live-without magazine? I really want to know!

Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel

P.S. Australian Vogue and Marie Claire hit the stands today.

New BFFs

Move over, Victoria; Katie has a new friend in town – none other than our very own Scientology convert Erica Packer (nee Baxter).
Cute jackets. Not so sure about Erica's comfort-over-style choice of Sienfeld-esque footwear.

Image c/o Austral Press.

Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel

P.S. This very good teen magazine is on sale today...