GWAS Playlist

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

1. DUJOUR is the latest magazine to hit the glossy scene. According to editor Letitia Burrell, "DUJOUR aims to be the new home for high and low fashion, featuring emerging indie designers, artistic culture & inspiring editorials." Covering beauty, culture, fashion and shopping, it has a Nylon-esque feel with an eco-friendly vibe and promises lots of "eye candy, as well as affordable fashion, sweet art, interesting reads and photography". The inaugural issue also contains a column by moi. At this stage, you can only buy it online (for US$15).

2. Style.com has had a little makeover. The overall look is clean, slick and fresh – like elleuk.com meets nymag.com. "We like to think that this is one makeover that’s more than skin-deep," say the editors. "We have made significant improvements to the architecture of the site, from a better organized homepage to helpful navigational elements, like a New on Style.com module, that now appear on every page. The net result: It’s quicker and easier to find the wealth of content our editors produce every day." The Beauty Counter blog is a new addition and Style File has had a little work done, too. And from September 2, the fashion editors will be "scouring the Web sites of the world’s top designers and retailers for the best online finds".

3. New York Magazine pits former ELLE fashion director Nina Garcia (representing Project Runway) against ELLE fashion news editor Anne Slowey (Stylista). Fantastic insights about the inner workings of ELLE ("Myers’s lack of jurisdiction over the fashion department began to grate on her a few years into the job... [Former creative Director Gilles Bensimon] saw Myers as ambitious, insecure, and overly American; she saw him as an overpaid, out-of-control spendthrift who was losing his touch"); Garcia's place on the ELLE food chain ("A bona fide celebrity by the show’s third season, Garcia was also becoming a bigger and bigger part of the package Elle sold to advertisers"); her rise to reality TV fame and eventual ELLE excommunication ("creative director Joe Zee was freezing her out, holding fashion meetings at 9:30 A.M. without telling her, and “forgetting” to invite her to a lavish dinner in Milan during the fashion shows"); her thoughts on the ambitious Slowey ("The difference between me and Anne Slowey is that I never sought this out. I never wanted to be famous"); and Slowey's fashionista idiosyncrasies, including her unfettered public dedication to the pursuit of weight loss ("Slowey’s big moment on the New York cocktail-chatter radar was divulging her February 2007 Fashion Week Food Diary... To motivate herself, Slowey buys her fashion-show ensembles, tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of Lanvin and Prada and Balenciaga, several sizes too small"). Jucier than Perez.

4. If you're into Jill Scott, Kelis, Lauryn Hill and Estelle, there's a good chance you'll like New Yorker Stephanie McKay. Her new album, Tell It Like It Is (Inertia), is soulista par excellence. Take a trip to the 70s with funky social anthem "Tell It Like It Is" ("when I see a young brother lost in the world, it brings a tear to my eye"), get your groove on to good-times track "Jackson Avenue", shoop to "This Letter" in the privacy of your b'room, feel the D'Angelo vibe of "Kinky", reminisce about past loves to "Where Did Our Love Go?" and feel empowered by the organ-infused "Oxygen". Lyrics with a social conscience in the tradition of Erykah Badu and Arrested Development, dance-worthy tracks and soothing soul make this a must for your spring/summer playlist. Still on music, I am utterly obsessed with "I'm Yours" by Jason Mraz (he's not as cute as Jack Johnson, but that voice! Melt.). It's the sound of summer.

5. The Independent's Carola Long writes 'The A to Z of the season: From Burberry's baubles to 1970s-style satchels.' Satchels are so in vogue! "The giant bag, aka the osteopath's bête noire, makes way for a more laid-back, Seventies alternative," writes Long. Also making the must-list are Anglophilia (tweed, tartan, Union flags, hunting jackets), bad girls (see 'Balenciaga'), costume jewellery ("the chunkier and bolder the better"), decorum (cover up!), economising (quality over quantity), 'First Lady Chic' (cue Carla reference), headwear (fancy hairnets), ink, kohl, lace, manbags ("for the more practically inclined"), over-the-knee boots, peplums (see Prada), paisley (uptown hippie), ribbons and bows, trousers (peg, banana or 7/8), undercuts, wrinkles (not on your face, obvi: "Sass & Bide's ruched and crinkled "rat" leggings already have a waiting list of over 100 people at Browns Focus"), Xanadu (not Olivia Newton-John on rollerskates, but in reference to Samuel Taylor Coleridge's 'Kubla Khan': "silk dhoti trousers, sensual bias-cut Hollywood dresses, and absinthe-fuelled belle époque decadence offers an antidote to the austerity") and zips (for your inner anarchic punk).

6. British makeover mistresses Trinny and Susannah may be facing their demise. The Daily Mail reports that after poor ratings for their latest show, Undress The Nation, ITV is "unlikely to renew their contract." This could be a load of codswallop. The duo left the publicly funded BBC, where they developed What Not To Wear, for the commercial ITV in 2005. "BBC sources say there is little enthusiasm to re-sign the pair and insiders are now claiming that the public fascination with the outspoken presenters has come to an end," says The Daily. "Newer - and nicer - fashion experts such as Gok Wan, whose Channel 4 show How To Look Good Naked is a low-key success, have stolen much of the limelight from Trinny and Susannah." Closer to home, the extremely likable Sonia Kruger (who copped flack for her Yum Cha Olympics commentary for 'playing dumb' – no fair) will be bringing her fresh face to 10 Years Younger in 10 Days (in which style-challenged couples get a surgery-free new look) while also co-hosting Dancing With the Stars with Daniel MacPherson. Together with her radio and Today Tonight commitments, that makes for one seriously busy schedule. Hope she's had her Weet-Bix.

7. Thanks to a Bella Mumma recommendation, my skin is looking like a shadow of its formerly flaky self. The secret? Homepeel's Flakey Skin Remover, $39.95. I'm very wary of exfoliating scrubs, as they've tended to irritate my skin in the past, preferring to stick with thrice-weekly facial cleansing with Olay's anti-blemish cleanser. But my skin was crying out for something with a little more grit to slew away the dead stuff to allow my moisturiser free reign on my dehydrated dermis. Mission accomplished. I couldn't stop touching my smooth post-scrub complexion. What's best is you can request a FREE sample! Go to homepeel.com.au for email details.

8. The girls (Shenae Grimes, AnnaLynne McCord and Jessica Stroup) from the new series of 90210 have made the latest cover of Nylon magazine. "The emotions and the issues are very real,” Shenae tells Nylon. “Like, on most television shows, the girl gets an eating disorder, she cries, her mom solves it… all in one episode. It’s not like that in real life, and on our show, these characters have real layers that will all peel away very, very slowly.” Meanwhile, it's reported that Tori Spelling opted out of appearing on the show because she wasn't going to accept less money than Shannen Doherty and Jennie Garth.

9. Jezebel reports that one woman is doing her darndest to change the negative body image women's magazines promote through social campaign website The Point: "Clare Ondrey has started a campaign for which the objective is to "get a major magazine to publish an issue without airbrushing or Photoshopping the models in any of the features or the cover." She asks members who support her campaign to pledge to buy at least two copies of the magazine, if the objective is met. Writes Ondrey:

"Everybody that joins this campaign fights the 'bad body image' hysteria sweeping the nation. Each person signed up commits to buying at least two copies of the first magazine that publishes an issue where at least the feature photo shoot and cover does not have any airbrushing. Why at least two? The issue would double in sales, making this campaign attractive to the publishers. You can give the extra copy to a friend who doesn’t know her own beauty. Spread the word that the standards for beauty we are not always what we see in the mainstream media."

I admire Ondrey for taking action. But while it's easy to point the finger at Photoshop for producing warped perceptions of beauty (and perfectionism), we have become accustomed (and expect) virtually flawless images. It is part of the accepted magazine aesthetic, particularly for fashion magazines who play up the 'fantasy' card. Art directors, in particular, take pride in producing that which is pleasing on the eye – if you want reality, go to your local mall. Even the 'real beauty' Dove campaign images are highly stylised (no ugly ducklings in that lot). Do you think that so long as readers are educated about magazine practises (which are widely exposed) we should let mags off the hook? Would you buy a glossy with an unretouched cover image? Do we buy magazines for reality or escapism? Do you judge a book by its cover?

10. Green fashion publication Boho (cue ad for Birkenstocks) is online and the print edition (which uses 100% recycled paper, packaging and inks) is available for subscription (US$34.95 a year). "Inside you'll find its content focuses on both the inner and outer you, infused with new ideas that will fill your spirit and empower you to put your own stamp on things while making the world a prettier place," says editor-in-chief Gina La Morte (a stylist by trade, formerly of TheStyleDoctor.com). Just the thing for the eco-fashionista.

Cute and chic this week... Blake, Matilda, Michelle, Kate and Katie.

Celebrity quote (um, rant) of the week: "I do not know Brangelina and do not mean to personally impugn them as they might be good people in the flesh, but the media's images of them are smelly and vile, and I must always attack the media's representation of what is good or cool, because those who inhabit the media world of glamour and entertainment and fashion and gossip are horrid people who have no talent of any kind, and yet think of themselves as tastemakers. Taste my sandy buttcrack, tmz,and perez!" - Roseanne Barr in reply to comments about her original Brangelina slaying

The Word for the Weekend: "Do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?'. For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Matthew 6: 31-34

Sponsor spot: Sick of skidding in your stilettos? Get yourself a set of No Slip Shoes Grips. Dying to update your wardrobe for spring? Get inspiration at MyLookBook, then head over to AustralianFlavour or FrockYou to make your purchases. Need a girlie gift? SassiSam is your best click. Is your man in need of skin product? Order your huMANature products online at GammaZon. Want to swap your once-loved clothes for someone else's? Register for the next Swap My Style event.

Yours truly,

Girl With a Satchel