Mags: Girlfriend retro issue

What was Girlfriend talking about 15 years ago? GWAS takes a look inside a treasured back-issue to find out. Giggles, gasps and OMG-are-they-kiddings? ensue...

Issue: November 1993
Cover price: $3.20
Book size: 148 pages
Cover models: Krissy and Niki Taylor. You could pretty much bet on one of the Taylor sisters appearing on the cover of Girlfriend or Dolly in the early 90s. Like younger versions of supermodel Elle Macpherson, their smiley, "sunkissed" LA-girl looks were what Aussie girls aspired to. When Krissy died from a reported asthma attack in 1995, aged 17 (later her death was linked to cardiac disease), it was major news and majorly disappointing. I may have cried. Inside, there's a DPS feature dedicated to the girls with a bunch of black and white beach snaps. They are too beautiful. No wonder I felt so inadequate as a teen!

Cover lines: 'Cossies that make you look slim' and 'Stars who starve themselves': in addition to Taylor sister perfection, the message is clear and simple: thin + beautiful is in.

Of note:

• In the tradition of Sassy, the features writers tend to use their own life experience (eg. "When I was in Yera 10 I had to move to a new school...") to create relationship and understanding with the reader. This doesn't happen as much with features now – the editor blogs (fash, ent., beauty), reader blogs and columns tend to be the reserve for the first-person, while features use second or third, giving them a more credible, if clinical, air. That said, teen writers would be remiss to use an "all-knowing" voice – young people are far too cynical to fall for that! A trend across the magazine spectrum these days, particularly in women's mags, sees writers using a mix of first and third person voices.
• No sealed section: the 'Body Clinic' and 'Love & Life' pages are open for all to read. No Q&As for family or friend issues, as there are now – plus, no Michael Carr-Gregg (who is a genius – Dr. Phil ain't got nothing on MCG).
• There are two fiction pieces – one being a column by 'C.C. O'Brien', who has decided to throw her first dinner party.
  

The ed. says: Kathryn Brown is "suffering Beverly Hills withdrawl symptoms... life isn't the same without Luke and Jason."

Celeb roll call: The 'Famous Faces' section gives us Edward Furlong, Marky Mark, Jeremy Jordan, Kate Moss and Michael Hutchence, while Christian Slater, Sandra Bernhard and Joey Lawrence make the 'Global Gossip' cut.

Regular pages: How Embarrassment (it never fails to amuse); This Month (we learn about Supermodel TV and casting love spells); in 'How to...' we're shown how to make a candle and a cool drink; Earth Alert – Eco Update (we cared about the environment back then, too – then it fell of the radar!); the 'This month's models' column profiles, you guessed it, the models featured in this issue (they have personalities and interests, you know); Horoscopes and Dream Doctor precede 'Global Gossip', a DPS of entertainment news ("Recently Sara Gilbert, who plays Darlene Connor on Roseanne, announced she was leaving the comedy series which is based in LA to attend Yale University in Connecticut"; "America's biggest heartthrob is Joey Lawrence who appears in the TV soap Blossom"; "Alex Demitriades and Melissa Tkautz were caught having a snog-up in a Sydney nightclub"), and the issue rounds off with 'Awkward Moments', a comic page.

Major features:

• 'How to get that boy to notice you' (writer Ally Oliver imparts her first-hand knowledge of boy attraction tactics - don't avoid him, flirt, be confident, get him alone, be bold, make him laugh and send him a mystery gift). There's a positive message about not changing yourself to get his attention and having something to say.
• In 'Is shyness ruining your life?', writer Ella McIntyre relates her own shy-girl behaviour before offering up her best advice via 'The art of conversation', 'How to make yourself speak out' and '8 ways to beat shyness'.
• 'Do you have to be thin to be famous?' gives us a bunch of celebrity before-and-after shots (Dannii Minogue, Madonna, Tracey Gold, Roseanne Arnold, Demi Moore, Melissa Tkautz, Cindy Crawford), with commentary about their weight loss ("how the stars keep their wobbly bits under control"), which is rather scary, as it gets quite specific:
  

"Tracey started struggling with anorexia when she was cast as Carol Seaver is the sitcom Growing Pains. The actress starved herself from 60kg down to less than 40kg after a casting agent told her she'd never get work unless she lost weight"; and "After giving birth to two children, Demi felt her fleshy frame was hindering her movie career. Funnily enough, after she hired a personal trainer she was immediately cast in Ghost and her career has gone from strength to strength ever since."

Essentially, for all the stars featured, their weight loss has been equated with success. What kind of message is this to be sending girls? The introductory editorial reads: "If you listen to the stars talking about their careers, it's always divided into two distinct sections – before they met their personal trainer and chef and after... when they won an Academy Award. Annoying, isn't it?". Yes, annoying, isn't it? This would never fly on the pages of GF now.

Fashion & Beauty: 'Beauty Bazaar' gives us 'supermodel secrets' (i.e. use this product and look like Helena/Niki/Naomi/Claudia/Cindy); Hair Buzz gives us the lowdown on Goldwell's Design Curl perming product; the 'House of Style' page starring Jennie Garth is sponsored by Sportsgirl (a store that teens still love but is marketed to older girls); 'White Heat' is the first fashion spread - think crochet, cheese cloth, shell necklaces, lace and white denim shorts. Hot!; a random page of 'Bargain Buys' gives us fashion priced from $10 to $72; the 'Style Council' page uses illustrations, rather than photos of real girls, to show us which swimsuits to choose to flatter our body shapes (big boobs; no waist and tummy bulges; small boobs; petite; too skinny; pear shape).

The 'Formal Special' contains a fashion spread called 'Enchanted Evening' – think long, floral frocks, dresses in shades of emerald and burgundy, ugly shoes word with sheer black tights and chokers (ew!) – a beauty story on the art of subtle makeup application, 'Late night locks', 'More dash than cash' (cheap dresses by Johnny Dexter, Room Two, PTO and Dangerfield) and another fashion spread pairing Nathan Harvey with models (clearly the male model is where it's at).

Health: We're given info on breast checks, fresh juices and cystitis and a 'Body Clinic' page (have I got genital warts? could I get breast cancer? I make myself sick...). There's a sport and fitness DPS called 'Good Sports' (how the Girlfriend team stay in shape) and a quiz which asks, 'Do you know enough about sex?'.

Boys & Entertainment: Nathan Harvey is on almost every page (a friend of my step-bros, I know he's now working at Sea World on the Gold Coast); Kelly Slater rates a few mentions; Keanu Reeves scores a DPS; 'male supermodels' get a four-page spread; music gives us Kim Wilde ("That pout! Those hits!), Pet Shop Boys, Kris Kross (jump, jump!), Ugly Kid Joe and Four Non Blondes. There's an ad for the Janet Jackson film Poetic Justice - and a film review; and a box on 'stars and their bad habits' (Tom Crusie = miming to songs; Sharon Stone = wearing no knickers). There's an interview with a guy named Justin King, who was a Girlfriend model but has his own band, Chill Factor. 'Loud Americans' profiles Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Rage Against the Machine (learn all the facts about your fave band!).

Advertisers: Coca-Cola, Yardley Oatmeal skin products (modelled by the band Girlfriend!), Bodypaint, Jenkins shoes, Hound Dog, Andrea hair removal products, Voodoo Dolls, Nair, Schwarzkopf Napro LIVE, Carefree...

There's not a lot of girl-empowerment going on between these pages, but there are a whole bunch of models, skinny celebrities and ads featuring bikini models. There's more interest in male celebrities than female celebs (who are gossiped about), with no feature stories devoted to girls on TV/film, though there are, of course, those two pages of the Taylor sisters ("the luckiest schoolgirls in the world"). Not a lot of looks/body/aspiration diversity going on here – even the staffers are trying to lose weight for summer in the health feature. I feel bad for my thirteen-year-old self (and worse still for the pimple-faced, frizzy-haired, braces-wearing, puppy-fat-cushioned 15-year-old she became!).

Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel

Mags: Happy birthday, Girlfriend!

My love affair with Girlfriend magazine started when I was 13, culminating in three years of editorial service in my 20s. And while other magazines of the teen/young adult's genre (Sassy, Jane, Chik, ELLEGirl – sob) have met unfortunate fates, languishing in Glossy Heaven for ever more, the GF brand rocks on, edging ever close to Dolly in circulation but still playing the girl-next-door underdog.

So, I'm pleased to be celebrating 20 years of Girlfriend today by flicking through a new issue featuring former Home and Away actress Indiana Evans on the cover and giving props to an editorial team who are deeply passionate about all things pop culture, pink and teen.

I'll be back later with scans from my magazine archives – yes, I still have some of my original Girlfriends from the '90s!

Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel

Pop: There goes the girlhood

Warning: I feel compelled to rant. My concern? We don't seem to be making any progress in terms of women's representations in the pop culture sphere. In fact, I think things are getting worse. Any young girl watching Make Me a Supermodel, tuning into MTV or glimpsing the covers in a newsagent would be forgiven for thinking sexy, vacuous, skinny or angry are the ultimate aspiration.

Exhibit A: Blender magazine.

I admit, The Pussycat Dolls are an easy target. But posing in 'wife-beaters'? It's not even ironic. Below are some of the lyrics from the Dolls' new single, "When I Grow Up", which 12-year-old girls across the world are singing in classrooms right now, just as we chanted "Hit me, baby, one more time". They can also check out the Dolls, in all their busty glory, on Video Hits at 10am on a Saturday morning, right after watching the more wholesome Miley Cyrus and her daddy in Hannah Montana, who, admittedly, displays anger management issues in the film clip for her "7 Things" single, just as Pink does in "So What" – angry girls or sexy girls, I'm not sure what's worse? Take it away PCD...

"When I grow up; I wanna be famous;
I wanna be a star; I wanna be in movies
When I grow up; I wanna see the world
Drive nice cars; I wanna have groupies
When I grow up; Be on TV
People know me; Be on magazines
When I grow up; Fresh and clean
Number one chick when I step out on the scene..."

Exhibit B: Rolling Stone magazine.

Kate Perry reminds me of Zooey Deschanel. I saw her perform her single, "I Kissed A Girl", on So You Think You Can Dance. She's cute. But along with LiLo's foray into lesbianism via her 'friendship' with Sam Ronson, I do worry that curious 10-year-olds might start swapping Lip Smackers with their little friends to be cool like Kate.

The chorus from Kate Perry's pop song, "I kissed a girl"...

"I kissed a girl and I liked it;
The taste of her cherry chap stick;
I kissed a girl just to try it;
I hope my boyfriend don't mind it;
It felt so wrong; It felt so right
Don't mean I'm in love tonight
I kissed a girl and I liked it; I liked it"

Kissing pop stars, angry pop stars, power lesbians... bring back the Spice Girls, I say!

And don't even get me started on the disturbingly super-fugly Miss Piggy-inspired 'heelarious' baby heels!

Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel

P.S. Meanwhile, the boys aren't doing any better. Kanye West has reportedly been arrested for bashing up a photographer, while Aussie polly Matt Brown lost his job over a pants-dropping scandal. Great role modelling, guys! At least I can rest assured some things are right in the world - Anna Wintour has vehemently denied she will be featuring Britney Spears in Vogue.

Mags: Women's Health (Guest Review)

Our intrepid reviewer Rochelle Zaknich feels inspired to get off the couch... just as soon as the Olympics are over and she's recovered from reading this month's over-zealous issue of Women's Health...

Being a tragic Olympic fan, it was with somewhat greater enthusiasm than usual that I picked up this month’s issue of Women’s Health. I don’t know if it’s all those fit-looking bronzed athletes (go Aussies!) or the sunny Spring-like weather we’ve been having here in Perth, but my thoughts are starting to turn towards hauling myself off the sofa and getting into some sort of health and fitness regime. While I won’t be giving up the sofa just yet – there’s a whole one more week of Olympics to go –, WH seemed like a relevant magazine to flick through in the ad breaks…

The cover... If there’s one thing guaranteed not to surprise you about WH each month, it’s the cover. Think taut, toned chick in a bikini and you’ll never be far off. This month, we get Nicole Boerner – I never recognise the names of any of the cover girls, so I can only assume they’re fit-looking models, or lesser-known athletes who just happen to be pretty. The coverlines feature the usual slew of numbers (‘2,127 All-new Nutrition, Exercise, Relationship, Beauty and Style Tips’ – who has to count these?!) and motivational fitness-speak. It’s labelled a special issue with a focus on ‘Relax & Recharge’ – yes, please!

The ed. says… Alongside her pretty new ed’s photo, Felicity Percival tells us about her difficulty ‘switching off’ during a recent spa visit and laments the fact that we are all drowning in data. A good point, but a quick flick through the issue only adds to this feeling for me – more on this below…

The story line-up:
• The focal point of this month’s issue is ‘The Big Easy’ – jam-packed full of tips and tricks designed to help us streamline our lives, save time and reduce stress. While it’s obvious that a lot of thought and research went into this feature, and many of the tips are quite useful (a diagram showing how to rescue jewellery from the drain – my greatest fear!), I found it contradictory. The feature is so chock-full of websites, gadgets (advertorials?) and numbers that it’s overwhelming. I would have preferred a more holistic approach – how can we change our mindset and streamline our lives from the inside out?
• ‘Sore Subject’ is the token science story this month, all about – you guessed it – pain. A fact-filled, newsy read if you can stay with it (I skimmed!). As a migraine sufferer, I can vouch for the fact that consuming caffeine with your painkillers really can help.
• ‘Head Strong’ is a fitness article all about mind over matter, which felt like a very relevant read after watching 38 year-old Romanian Constantina Tomescu-Dita win the women’s marathon in the Olympics while eating croissants on the sofa today – truly amazing stuff! The feature explains some of the psychology behind endurance, strength-building exercises and motivational mantras from athletes and the WH team (“This is not the hardest thing I’ve ever done”, Amanda Ryan, 32. Though in Tomescu-Dita’s case, it probably was!).
• ‘Sex Repairs’ by Leslie Goldman gives us her first-person experience of sex therapy (brave girl!). Goldman tries to work through three of her issues: impatience to orgasm, her and her partner’s conflicting schedules, and the most tricky: body consciousness. The first two seem to be checked off fairly easily via some tantric breathing and appointment making, while the body-image stuff takes a little more work. Goldman’s therapist explains that it’s the control freak in her coming out, and after some burlesque dancing and a night of submission, the problem is seemingly cured and the feature wrapped up.

The superficial:
• Returning to the ‘relax and recharge’ theme, we get ‘The WH Spa Guide’. All pretty ho-hum for an anti-spa person like myself but possibly quite useful if you’re planning a break yourself. Editor Felicity Percival and Beauty Editor Nicole Wraight both write in-depth reviews before the usual state-by-state guide. It’s probably the cynic in me coming out, but has a journalist ever been sent on an all-expenses-paid spa trip and written a bad review? You know what you’re getting here.
• ‘Lose the Last 3…5…10 Kilos’ features four women who are prescribed diets to help budge the pesky weight that won’t budge. While I think the intentions are good here, I really hate the idea of a diet, especially one that has a name (‘the abs diet’ – sounds fun, huh?). I thought women’s mags were moving past this?
• While I don’t know that it’s ‘superficial’, food articles featuring recipes generally make up the fluffier lifestyle component of the magazine. ‘Power Pizzas’ is a visual treat featuring five pages of recipes that pack a nutritious punch – the Thai Prawn pizza sounds delish!

While I think WH is doing a good job of promoting its mantra, ‘it’s good to be you’, I’d love for it to be a bit more dynamic each month – things are starting to feel a bit formulaic.

The score:
Overall excitement factor: 6
Feel-good factor: 5 and 10ish (ties in well with the tagline of the mag…)
Eye-candy rating: 3

The Stats:
Issue: September 2008
Cover Price: $6.95
Book size: 164 pages
Ad/promo pages: 47 out of 164 pages
FOB ads: Garnier, Olay, Avon, Asics, Biotherm, Champion, O.P.I.
Back Cover: Clinique
Editor: Felicity Percival
Website: www.yahoo7.com.au/womenshealth

Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel

Mags: State of the (Mag)Nation

So, no surprises with the latest magazine circulation and readership figures – consumers are penny pinching to accommodate the rising cost of living, leaving glossy mags behind at the checkout rather than chucking them in the trolley.

Sales of all the weekly titles fell (welcome to the market, Grazia!), while women's and men's lifestyle magazines also felt the brunt of lower consumer confidence. A rare exception to the trend, Pacific Magazines' Marie Claire managed to hold its ground, while new girl Women's Health (also Pacific) reported an increase of 13%, and Harper's Bazaar (ACP) continues to strengthen its position. Advance apologies for gaps in the below results – Pacific and News Mags have been slow to update their stats on their respective sites!

Circulation (i.e. sales)...

"Magazines have suffered their worst declines in circulation in years, the overall market diving more than 7% as consumers cut discretionary spend in tightening economic conditions," says AdNews. "The latest Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) figures for the year ending June 2008 reveal weekly magazines suffered the most, declining by 9.31% last quarter while monthlies dropped by 5.38% over the last half year."

Down...
Cosmo dropped 18.7% of sales (165,301 Aussie sales)
Cleo dropped 12.3% (149,256)
The Australian Women's Weekly dropped 12.4% (to 530,143)
Madison dropped 2.4% (95,166)
Shop Til You Drop dropped 6% (75,197)

NW dropped 11.9% (to 155,150)
Famous dropped 10.8% (to 67,135)
Woman's Day dropped 8.5% (430,235)
NW dropped 12.3% (155,150)

Up and up...
Harper's Bazaar up 5% (55,891)
Better Homes and Gardens up 13.56% (335,000+)
Health Smart up 11.34% (80,161)

Readership...

Though overall magazine readership grew by 1.1% in the past 12 months, "Women’s weeklies, women’s fashion, teen girls, women’s lifestyle, men’s interest, and men’s lifestyle were among the categories to lose total readership," reports AdNews.

Down...
Madison down 20.6% (235,000)
Cleo down 22% (495,000)
Cosmo down 8.4% (688,000)

InStyle down 12.4% (240,000)
Harper's Bazaar down 2.9% (236,000)

NW down 12.7% (529,000)
New Idea down 9.7% (1,955,000)
Woman's Day down 9.5% (2,354,000)

Girlfriend down 15.6% (318,000)
Dolly down 14.4% (366,000)

Up and up...
Shop Til You Drop up 16% (206,000)
Marie Claire up 3.2% (513,000)
Vogue up 0.6% (350,000)

OK! up 31.4% (431,000 readers)
Famous up 3.9% (308,000)
Who up 2.9% (786,000)

Better Homes & Gardens up 16.9% (1,698,000)
Real Living up 8.2% (122,000)
Home Beautiful up 8.2% (367,000)
Notebook up 4.1% (340,000)
Vogue Entertaining & Travel up 20.1% (173,000)

Slimming & Health up 15.6% (89,000)
Delicious up 18.9% (509,000)
Super Food Ideas up 15.6% (1,003,000)

The Monthly up 102.2% (91,000)

Read my last readership report here and the last 'State of the (mag)nation' circulation report here.

Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel

Books: What's Happening To Our Girls?

Mothers, lock up your daughters! What Is Happening To Our Girls? (Viking, $29.95) is a very important book (one which should be read by anyone who has anything to do with raising, teaching or writing for girls, in particular) but, by golly, has it put me off childbirth. I'm just not sure I could cope with the pressure of producing a 'normal' girl child in the context of the challenging, unsettling world Maggie creates for us via two years of research, interviewing and writing.

The book covers a lot of ground, taking us from the way babies and toddlers are exploited by brands ("some girls are now fashion-conscious as young as 3 or 4"), to how girls are being conditioned to associate their self-worth with looks alone, the way in which imagination and creativity is undermined via subservience to consumerism, technology, ready-made entertainment and premature sexualisation, tween purchasing power and celebrity worship, peer anxiety, body loathing, stress, exhaustion and expectations, the influence of magazines, media and pop culture ("many will bypass magazines for girls their age and head straight for Cosmo and Cleo"), plastic surgery, eating disorders, self-harm (i.e. cutting), bullying/bitching culture, physical violence, sexual activity ('Monday Morning Syndrome' refers to girls arriving at school "totally devastated by a sexual experience"), being sexy, STDs, drinking and drug-taking, shoplifting for thrills, depression, selfishness, suicide, social networking issues, cyber challenges/predators, pornography and a general crisis of identity, purpose and strong, fulfilling relationships. Of course, Maggie tempers all this depressing content with the consistent use of perk-me-up suggestions at the conclusion of most chapters, which serve to remind us that we are all responsible for this mess and, therefore, responsible for helping girls to clean up their act.

I had a chat with Maggie this week about the book, teen girls and the things feminism forgot. Her message: "We have to reclaim the next generation of girls who are slipping away from us."

What prompted you to write the book?
When I finished my book on men and boys [What Men Don't Talk About], everyone said ‘I guess you’re going to be doing girls now’. To be honest, I wasn’t that interested. I thought there was nothing new to say – there are endless editorials. But being naturally curious, I thought I’d see if there was anything that hadn’t been talked about.

I don’t have kids myself, sadly, but I started talking to girlfriends who have teenage girls and younger girls and they were absolutely bug-eyed. So I thought I have to keep going with this. We’re focused on our girls doing better than boys at school and giving them career choices but this whole tsunami of other influences is threatening to swamp them. And we’re completely oblivious to it.

So, then I got into it in earnest and two years later finished my research and wrote the book up. It was a huge project. In some areas there was very little research done. There are over 100 teen girl voices in the book, from all different backgrounds and chosen randomly, but I also spoke to teachers, school counselors, child psychologists, medical staff, law enforcement people, including those working underground on the net. All of these people are dealing with dozens of kids every week, so I felt that by doing that I was getting access to a much larger pool, rather than just speaking to the girls. But what I did try to do was to get inside their skins and then try and translate for parents how they’re experiencing being a teen or a tween or any girl, for that matter, so we can understand it.

What were some of the more startling revelations?
That one in ten girls are cutting themselves across Australia and when you talk to the girls it’s quite normal – they talk about it like crossing the road. When you look at the psychological literature, they talk about the unbearable pain that girls are experiencing. Self-harm is like letting steam out.

The other thing is underage sex. A lot of the teachers, quite young ones, that I spoke to were shocked. One said she couldn’t believe that girls of 14 were having sex and that in the last few years that’s decreased to 12 and some 14-year-olds have had up to 20 partners or multiple partners in a single night. With the oral and anal sex, we're seeing a lot of it in girls 12 and up and they’re getting STDs – particularly chlamydia, because often it’s not detectable and causes infertility. Professor David Bennett has said that we might be facing the most infertile generation of young women in history.

Young girls are seeing their bodies purely from the point of view of how guys are going to see them. I think this goes back to the whole packaging of images of sexy models. I think the sexualisation debate is very narrow and leaves out a lot of elements that allows trendy parents to say, ‘Oh, they’re just old fashioned’. The fact is that these girls have seen sexy models on billboards and in magazines from the time they can register them, not realising one per cent of women are ever going to look like that. And it makes all the wonderful shapes and sized we come in look abnormal. Even in pre-schools the girls are now concerned about how they’re looking and what they’re wearing. By the time they get to their teens, these girls have had a number of years focusing on the way they look – not on the inside person. I think this very much impacts on their anxieties and also coming across sexually, when perhaps they mightn’t really want to.

Did you feel overwhelmed when you were researching?
I did. I bored my girlfriends senseless for two years. I’d find a new piece of research and I’d be so shocked about it that I’d have to talk about it and they patiently listened (I’m sure any mention of the book now makes them want to scream) but I had to download it.

I think what we’re denying girls – and we’ve seen a huge decline in imagination from branding, etc. – is imagination, which is what carries you forward in life, whether it’s navigating a fallout with a girlfriend or what you might do in the future, the dreams you have for yourself and filling in bored moments. Imagination is so rich and we need to keep that alive.

Did the girls have anything positive to say?
The really positive thing for me, in the last two chapters, was that these girls, when they grow up, want to be married and have babies – not because they’re romantics but because they’ve seen the fallout from their parents' and friends’ parents' relationships from the endless partners and blended families. They want to find that one person who can create that warm space for them.

One thing we don’t do is give girls the opportunity to serve in the community. I was talking to the CEO of Girl Guides Australia recently and she’s trying to totally re-image what Girl Guides is about and this is going to be one of the elements. It’s also about giving girls new role models. She’s looking at giving them leaders who are in their early 20s – young women who’ve got it together who can really encourage.

I think we also need to encourage them to have friendships across generations – mum’s best friend or a favourite aunty or grandma and grandpa. A lot of them talk really warmly about grandparents – they felt they lived in a really warm, womb-like space and they wanted to be like them one day.

Is part of the problem that girls are lacking in a solid family structure and spiritual values – are all values based around image?
Yes, and I think the community doesn’t support girls. A girlfriend of mine who worked for ACP Magazines for a few years said to me, ‘You know, Maggie, I grew up in a rural Queensland and when I look back, I had about 30 people looking out for me. And that meant everything from getting a kick in the pants for doing something naughty to gathering me up if I was a bit distressed about something – making me a cup of tea and giving me a biscuit and then sending me off home feeling okay.’

Girls are spending a lot of time alone. They cling to their peers because they want to feel this belonging. Their peers are there 24/7, which has its problems, but at least their peers are there.

We have to encourage our girls to get creative. In terms of fashion, of course they want to be up with the latest fashions, but we’ve got a planet that’s groaning with problems. We should get them into things like vintage; teach them how to knit so they can make a scarf or beanie for themselves or a girlfriend. A lot of those things are very soulful, which we threw out with the women’s movement. We didn’t understand how fabulous it was. We need to give girls the opportunity to serve – to take part in tree planting… things that plant them in the community and give them a sense of value and belonging. I think girls are crying out for this.

What about feminism…
I think the movement had been very important but we have to be honest that not all of it is working and that every social change has unexpected consequences and I think we have consolidated materialism to a whole new level. It was important for women to have their own income, because terrible things happened when they didn’t, but life’s about more than the handbag and new pair of shoes. And I think that’s why we have such a high rate of depression.

What I found very sad was the number of 14-16 year old girls, who hate what’s happening to little girls, who said they wished they could go back to childhood, when everything was easy and innocent, when they didn't worry about what other people thought or what they wore or how they came across. Being accepted by girlfriends and the terrible fear that if they don’t have the right shoes or bag or listen to the wrong music that they’d be cast out of the group is a huge thing. Of course, life is about more than shoes and the new handbag.

Visit Maggie's website or order a copy of the book for more.

Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel

Mags: Grazia's glossy debut

The recurring thought I had while sifting through the 172 glossy pages of Grazia is 'How the heck are they going to be able to deliver one of these every week?'. Seriously, it's a lot of content. There are a lot of ads, too, mind – 58 ad pages in total, plus 9 promotional/marketing pages = 39% of pages. Still, I've no doubt the team is lacking in the sleep department. And there's confirmation on the Ed's letter page (which could have used another sub). Former Harper's BAZAAR editor Alison Veness-McGourty leads in with:

"There are rumours doing the rounds that I get up at 4am to do this job. Well, honestly, I mean it's just not true. 4am is when I go to bed."

There are 36 full-time editorial staff working to bring us Grazia each week under the guidance of workaholic (and mum) Veness-McGourty, in addition to seven contributors/correspondents, 14 advertising staff, two production staff and the highly paid suits at ACP/PBL, Hearst and Mondadori Magazines who oversee the whole shebang. For the sake of all this talent, and the sheer passion of McGourty and her hard-working team, I hope the magazine's high-end style of fashion/celebrity/gloss, mixed with NW-style goss and, of course, Kate Moss, resonates with the Australian magazine buyer (and, of course, advertisers whose budgets are, no doubt, a little trimmer this financial year).

Journey with me as I flick from front to back...

• High-end labels Louis Vuitton (super-shiny gatefold: show offs) and Prada lure us into the glossy world of Grazia. Clearly, this is a magazine for the career girl/fashionista/supermum who buys Harper's BAZAAR or Vogue and is looking for a weekly dose of similar content to satiate her desire for the new, celebrity gossip (in chic surroundings) and inspiration for hitting the shops (like she needs another excuse!).
• Zac Posen poses with models backstage on the Contents page, which is followed by beauty ads for L'Oreal's Infallible Lip Duo Compact, Elizabeth Arden, Clinique (love the pretty ad for Nude Blush) and Rimmel London (featuring... Kate Moss! Total number of Mossy pics inside this issue: 6).
  
• In her editor's letter, AVM tells us what her magazine is all about: "It's about being gorgeous, glamorous, it's about gosh!! It's about a rip-roaring stellar (Stella...) read that hopefully with enthral you and appal you with its intensity... we may be in the grip of a recession, but we will walk through it together, from the cheap and chic, clever and canny buys to the most expensive purchases... I want Grazia to be a must-read for all your news and your shoes, to give you celebrity with integrity and glamour; plus the very best mix of fashion and beauty... like a good book you can't put down."
• 'The Week in 10' presents us with 10 covetable fashion items, which is totally boring, though I like the inclusion of art editor Sarah Birnbauer's 'must list' (YSL bag, Luella top, Lee jeans) and can see it serves a purpose. I think they can do better.

• Next up is fashion features director Edwina McCann's 'Shoes with news!' column, where she tells us she's ditching her all-black uniform in favour of colour, inspired by Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser Al-Missned. A small tribute to Marcs designer Mark Keighery also.
  
• The four-page cover story 'Why Kate won't change for anyone' is really just an excuse for us to check out Mossy in a bikini, with those ubiquitous on-the-yacht holiday shots padded out with a story about her breakup with Jamie Hince, her apparent reluctance to settle down and her BFF Davinia Taylor.
• Other features include 'Elle: 'Love is imperative', three-pages on the supermodel in light of Arki's relationship with Uma ("I've got a fabulous life. I am in a fantastic space and I feel confident and blessed." Not even just a little peeved?) and 'Madonna's brother speaks exclusively to Grazia'. I'm so over looking at/hearing about Madonna that I skip over it and while I like to look at pretty pictures of Elle, I don't care for reading about her (can't relate on any level – and she always comes across as kind of aloof).
  
• Jodhi Meares, holding a very large eagle, is given three pages to explain why she opted out of hosting the Next Top Model final (we're not given anything really new to munch on – we know she's not an entertainer and loathes the spotlight). She's a pretty bland subject, though, for some reason she appeals to me.

• The first serious feature is 'Zimbabwe: Will life ever be normal again?' a first-person account by Cathy Buckle of life under Robert Mugabe's regime.
• 'Grazia: This Just In' is next, written by Edwina McCann, who is glad she's not Angelina Jolie this week (McCann also has twins) and says if Angelina starts to look emaciated soon it's because of the double workload (no mention of her entourage of carers).
• Grazia Exclusive: 'Like, totally epic' is two pages devoted to the Australia costume wardrobe. Yawn.
• 'Confessions of a celebrity stylist' is a first-person piece by Erin Vincent, who went to LA to fulfill a dream and got a fill of celebrity crap (many actors are "spoilt, demanding and just plain tiresome", can you believe?). Revealing comments about J.Lo and Gisele and a revelation that the American dream ain't all it's cracked up to be. Good read.
  
• Tabloid fodder comes via 'I begged them to make him stop', another first-person piece; this time by midwife Robin Moon who worked alongside 'butcher' obstetrician Graeme Reeves.
  
• Nivea has gone to town with a six-page ad spread.
• Aussie model Alexandra Agostan pens 'The Princess Diaries', giving us her account of modelling for Dior.
  
• 'Cult blogger' Ugly Debty (current total debt $131,373.87) gets some publicity with her as-told-to contribution 'In the red! I blew $130k on Jimmy Choos'. She's kept her debt a secret from her family and friends and banker husband (the ultimate deception!) and instead is blogging her way back into the black. Handy hints on reducing debt are included. She makes me feel positively saintly.
  
• We enter the fashion section via ads for Covergirl, Just Jeans and Diet Coke and a giant still-life picture of a Brit-inspired Chanel handbag. This is followed by two pages of artfully displayed pumps, a full-page picture of Nicole Richie in ballet flats, a page of ballet flats, a page in tribute to a pair of $2070 Louis Vuitton pumps, a rather uninspiring picture of Kate Moss toting a Mulberry Smithfield bag accompanied by seven similar black bags for us to choose from, a page of metallic bags, a page of totes in shades of yellow, tan and burnt orange, a page devoted to Prada's lace bags and a page of purses.

• We then get 'Tagged & bagged!', a page breaking down the outfit details of a celebrity (Jennifer Hawkins in Dior this week), 'Style Dash', a single outfit idea, 'G!Rated', fashion director Mark Vassallo's nod to printed dresses available at Myer, 'Quick Fix', another single outfit idea, a page promoting grazia.com.au and a three page ad for Dotti (Target and Wheels & Dollbaby also have pages attached to the section).

• The first fashion spread, 'It's only rock & roll', runs over 12 pages and features model Louise Van de Vorst, Daniel Johns' girlfriend (way to get some work by association!), who vamps it up in leopard print, fishnet tights, skinny jeans, feathers, fluoro heels, red lipstick and a lot of bling.

• The second shoot, 'Under the influence', is decidedly more demure (in contrast to the headline), which references Yves Saint Laurent's major collections. Very clever.

• Sportsgirl gets a two-page promotion (there's a Grazia Fashion Cupboard in select stores). Avon's up next (two pages) and O.P.I's ad leads into beauty and health director Lucinda Pitt's column on her age awakening.
  
• 'The new rules' is a four-page beauty feature (three hot looks to love this season – berry lips, golden eyes, satiny skin) with backstage shots, instructions and product suggestions; 'G!Rated' is Lucinda Pitt's pick of smoky eye makeup buys; 'The best beauty advice you'll ever get' is two pages of insider knowledge, again by Lucinda, which gives us the 411 on finding expert colourists, manicurists and facialists; and 'One wonderful find' is Giorgio Armani's Designer Modelling Compact Foundation ($94).

• The health feature is 'Busting the health myths!', which tackles 10 myths, such as 'you should stretch before you exercise' to 'wearing glasses makes your eyesight worse', which I found to be informative (lots of expert quotes) – possibly the best value feature so far.
• 'My name's Wendy and I'm a drunkorexic' is about a binge drinker who skips meals (get drunk and forget you're hungry!). Deeply disturbing, though I'm not one to judge women's unusual eating habits (I have a few of my own quirks!). A stark warning about getting into the weighing yourself game: "Now I weigh myself every morning. If I put on a few kilos I'm disappointed, but it soon comes off if I'm on a 'drinking, no food' day." Sadly, for many women, the mission is weight loss, not health, so our bodies suffer – the long-term health implications rarely get a look-in. Food for thought.
  
• In stark contrast, Matthew Evans' 'Out of the pantry' food column, in which he recounts 'five days in the life of the ultimate foodie', gives us reasons to be excited about eating. His writing is (for want of a better word) yummy. On his preparation of Granny Smith apples: "I core them from the top using a melon-baller... crack a few of autumn's walnuts... I push chunks of them into the apples' holes, add a dot of butter, then pile as much brown sugar on top as the apple will hold. What cascades to the tray mingles with juice from the apple and the occasional dribble of butter." Hungry yet? Evans also shares my love of Sirena Tuna in Oil, so now I admire him even more (foodie crush!). Possibly by favourite page so far. And it's followed by an ad for my chocolate of choice – Green & Black's Organic Dark Chocolate.

• The 'Well Travelled' page gives us five destinations to consider for cocktail hour, while 'My French Love Affair' is Collette Dinnigan's gastronomic/accommodation/spa recommendations written in 'Dear Grazia' letter format.
• 'Grazia Girls OS' is two pages of columns from the magazine's London and New York correspondents, Aussies Elizabeth Colman and Anna Johnson respectively. I enjoyed the escapism and visual pictures both writers painted. Good read.
  
• Catherine Martin (costume designer) gets five pages to take us through the opulent home she shares with husband Baz Luhrmann.
  
• 'See Watch Do' is a page of entertainment bits (two short film reviews; a festival to attend; and single TV, book, album, art and music reviews). This is followed by a two-page feature on The Dark Knight.
• 'Meet the BrIT Girls' is up next, which profiles the "new wave of brash young things who have taken over the clubs, A-list parties – and the headlines." The roll call includes Pixie Geldof, Peaches Geldof, Daisy Lowe, Agyness Deyn, Nathalie Press, Ben Grimes-Viort, Alice Dellal, Alexa Chung and Jaime Winstone.
• Promo pages and star signs round out the issue, with 'Oh goodie!' the last page ("each week we're giving away a stunning It bag jam-packed with luxe goodies!"), followed by an ad for Portmans and the Estee Lauder back cover.
  

All this leads me to ask, is Grazia necessary? Are we getting anything here we can't get elsewhere (blogs, mags, websites, newspapers...)? Is it strong enough to supplement some of our other magazine purchases? Could it become an 'only buy' for some women? Will I wait with desperation for it to land each Monday at my newsagency?

Grazia is essentially a blending of Shop Til You Drop, WHO weekly, Famous, OK!, the newspaper supplements (like Sunday magazine and Body & Soul) that I adore, and, perhaps, UK ELLE or Australia's own Harper's BAZAAR. As a committed magazine buyer/blogger, I'll be sticking with it for as long as my budget allows. Though I'm not overly excited by this debut issue, it definitely has the potential to be a weekly must-read.

At the moment, it seems to be servicing advertisers as much as wooing readers, which I don't think is safe. I'm in awe of the amazing team that has been pulled together to put the magazine out – some of Australia's best writing and styling talent – but the magazine seems to be lacking spark. Is it humour? Wit? Too many bland features? Too many sparse still-life pages? Too many first-person columns? Is it taking itself too seriously? Is it trying to be all things when all it really wants to do is go shopping and find a new lipstick?

I love the idea of a weekly magazine devoted entirely to the materialistic pastime of shopping and improving one's makeup bag and wardrobe, alongside some meaty features and celebrity gossip (a la Marie Claire), yet I'm left wanting. Quite simply, it doesn't inspire me to shop.

You know what I'd like to see? I never thought I'd say this, but more celebrity pictures (with accompanying still-life and/or style suggestions) – but this is, perhaps, because that's what I've come to expect from a weekly. I'd also love more bitsy/scrapbooky trend compilation pages, insider interviews (I'm a sucker for features where we get invited into the wardrobe of a chic woman), street style pictures (surely Sydney is fertile photography ground, in addition to NYC, Paris London and Rome), a page (or several) of chain-store must-haves (perhaps there could be three levels of must-haves: chain-store, designer, high-end designer), workwear suggestions/lunch-time buys (like UK ELLE), beauty looks to try for the week and fashion/shopping news, in addition to some escapism via the travel section express.

Overall excitement factor: 6
Feel-good factor: 4/5
Eye-candy rating: 3/4

Kudos to the team and looking forward to watching the Grazia evolution!

Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel

Faith: Spiritual fix (Warning: mild use of Bible bashing)

If all those joyful pilgrims running about town in celebration of World Youth Day piqued your interest in spirituality, and has you questioning or thinking about the role of faith in your own life (you can read about my own spiritual development here), my suggestion for the week is to plug into some sites online that'll serve you some answers.

In addition to my daily servings of WhoWhatWearDaily, JustJared, Jezebel, tabloid news (c/o The Daily Telegraph and The Daily Mail), serious news (via SMH/ABC) and glossy magazine content, which combined has the definite potential to warp my world view, I find that the daily devotional message from The Word For Today, as well as tuning into my local Christian radio station (96.5 – non-daggy music, I promise!), reading Stephanie Dowrick's column in Good Weekend and dipping into books by Joyce Meyer (in addition to attending church, daily prayer and Bible readings, of course) give me the spiritual grounding and affirmation I need in a world obsessed with consumption, image, celebrity, cosmetic surgery, financial success and excess.

I know, I know – you're too busy working, exercising, socialising, relaxing, shopping, cooking and/or bringing up children to add another bookmark to your bar or attend a church service: so am I. But the payoff is priceless – grounding your everyday actions and thoughts in the faith you follow makes life simpler and simply more joyful and essentially makes you stronger in the face of worldly pressures. It's not a cop-out or a sign of weakness to seek out something deeper and more meaningful for your life: it's a challenge that takes time, discipline and daily commitment (especially if you're a control-freak shop/mag/celeb-aholic, like moi).

Here's a sample devotional from The Word for Today (a daily newsletter you might like to subscribe to):

"Mastering Yourself: Let your flesh know who's in charge. Look for ways to say 'no' to yourself every day. If you do, you'll be able to do it when it really counts. We're not just talking about cardinal sins, but zeroing in on the undisciplined areas of our lives that we excuse, rationalise, or postpone dealing with. Paul writes, 'All things are lawful for me, but all things are not helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.' (1 Co 6:12). Paul measures his actions by this yardstick: 'Is it beneficial? Does it have the potential to control me?' How long are you going to keep telling yourself, 'I know I need to change, and I will - tomorrow'? You have the right to consume chocolate cake and ice cream at bedtime every night. It's 'permissible', but not 'beneficial', especially if you want unblocked arteries, sugar-free blood, a trim waistline, the ability to run a marathon, or maybe just to keep up with your grandchildren. You have the right to spend your time and money as you please, but you don't have the right to complain when the law of diminishing returns kicks in. You have the right to fill your mind with any kind of rubbish you choose. But understand this, constant exposure to the wrong things will weaken your character, rob you of self-respect and eventually enslave you. When it comes to replacing bad habits with good ones, only one person is going to make it happen - you. Your character is the sum total of your everyday choices. Day by day, what you think, what you choose and what you do, is who you become."

Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel

Pretty: Smile high club...

I love getting confessional reader emails along the lines of this one from Elizabeth, a fellow glossy obsessive and the proud owner of the above gorgeous 'book room'...

"There are magazines going back to the early 1990s, though I have occasional 80s and 70s magazines – otherwise, I don’t collect “vintage”. And I regret the ones I threw away before I became serious about keeping them. They’re organised by year, with some separated piles of specific magazines (because I can). As well as the titles and subscriptions I mentioned (I subscribe directly to American Vogue and Harper's Bazaar, and buy at my local newsagents British Vogue and Elle, and regularly buy first- or second-hand madison and Shop Til You Drop and others), I’ve held subscriptions in the past to Allure, Glamour and Lucky (American direct subscriptions are soooooo cheap!). I also have another bookshelf that holds my living/home/food magazines.

Honestly, I am sure I could have bought my house ten years ago with all the money I’ve spent on magazines… but then what would I put in my book room?! (I used to fib to my parents about magazines – “oh no, I didn’t buy that, I borrowed it from the library” – but of course now with all those shelves of evidence it’s pointless! They know how much I enjoy magazines – they are my one vice – a necessary one. And when bush fires threatened my suburb a couple of years ago, I honestly was in shock at the thought of abandoning my magazines (and the fuel they would provide for a fire). I re-read them all regularly!"

Elizabeth's email has the same effect on me as those Kraft Philadelphia Cream Cheese ads (y'know, the angels in heaven ones; I like 'em) – but rather than making me want to spread cheese all over everything, I want to make tracks for the nearest newsagent! Gimme, gimme, gimme. Clearly, I'm overdue for a Glossaholics Anonymous meeting.

I'm equally excited by a cute press release (yes, I need to get out more), like this one promoting the launch of Nicole Hopkinson's new book The Global Shopper 2 ($24.95; Hardie Grant Books, out in August – review to come!). The pack came with the book, press release, a 'Passport to Shop' promotional booklet and a pair of socks to keep my tootsies warm as I surf the web...

Genius!

Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel

Mags: Oprah's brand of spirituality

When you run the same face on the cover every month, you’ve really got to work the power of a strong cover line. The intrigue factor of ‘We’re starting a beauty revolution (say bye-bye to feeling bad about your looks)’ – possibly a reference to Nora Ephron’s book I Feel Bad About My Neck – has kept me from abandoning the June issue of O The Oprah Magazine (Surprise: Oprah’s on the cover!), to my ‘never did get around to reviewing it’ pile (would you believe it’s wastefully large?).

As a spiritual girl, for whom faith has become, in recent years, more important than acquiring Marc Jacobs pumps (no one ever said I didn’t occasionally stumble), Oprah’s brand of woman-of-the-world, easily digestible and life-applicable Christianity has huge appeal for me. The woman is, after all, a former preacher and journalist, who aspires to live like Jesus Christ. Quite the challenge, I imagine, for someone who is idolized, monetized, busy and hugely successful. The cornerstone of Jesus’ appeal was his absolute humility and selfless service and sacrifice – as well as his unfailing devotion to a life led by the Lord (i.e. not of his own choosing). As such, Oprah’s probably on the A-list at Heaven’s door.

Oprah’s magazine, owned by Hearst, isn’t preachy, though the May issue dealt almost entirely with the issue of spirituality. Essentially, what this magazine does is provide another means for her audience to get their Oprah fix (and make Hearst/Oprah some more cashola). On another level, it also caters for a market somewhere between mainstream women’s magazines, which largely steer clear of religion (unless they’re reporting on the latest Scientology scandal, giving it to Polygamists or investigating a Morman sect), and the Christian woman’s market, which is full of titles that mostly verge on daggy. As such, the concepts employed by positive psychologists are more the guiding editorial philosophy than overtly Biblical principles (which, as you might have noticed, often appear in my sidebar).

Women like to be in control of their lives – a concept in conflict with Christianity (God is in control). From what we eat to where we work out, educate ourselves, marry, get married and invest (or spend) our money (see the ‘Take control of your money, honey’ coverline), we’re happiest (or so we think) when we’re calling the shots. This means when something doesn’t go according to our plans, or someone upsets the balance, we grow frustrated and miserable… and indulge in a little retail therapy, over-eating or wine drinking.

In this post-feminist, fast-paced, achievement-driven era, the idea of waiting patiently for guidance and accepting sometimes life takes us in a different direction to that which we’d hoped is completely foreign: ‘going with the flow’ is for hippies – if you want something, you go ahead and get it. And when we get it (the job, the Marc Jacobs pumps, the man) and find that we’re still unhappy or unfulfilled, we go ahead and make plans to get the next thing: the Masters degree, the mortgage, the baby). And if we’re still not happy, we get a publishing deal and go to an Indian ashram, a divorce or a sneaky little face lift. Will we ever be truly satisfied? Who or what is driving us into this state of perpetual want? Where are our expectations coming from?

Last month Oprah interviewed Eckhart Tolle, one of her spiritual idols; this month she interviews Maria Schriver, her friend of 30 years. As you know, Schriver is the wife of Californian governor, Arnie Terminator, as well as a member of the Kennedy family and a very successful journalist who was forced to leave her plumb job at the NBC due to a perceived conflict of political interest. What Schriver and Oprah have in common is drive, a determination to exceed expectations and please other people, and lives defined by their work. However, after being forced to jump off the career treadmill in 2003, Schriver told a women’s conference last year, “You can spend the rest of your life trying to figure out what other people expect from you… or you can make a decision to let that all go. For this people-pleasing, legacy-carrying, perfection-seeking good girl, that was a news bulletin.”

Schriver’s values were inherently Kennedy: competitiveness, working vacations, public service, accomplishment. In the interview, Oprah tells her friend that at 25 she didn’t know what to do with her life, despite at that stage having a job reporting the news and weather and preaching on Sundays, and that she was always anxious, to which Schriver replies:

“I always thought the answer was the next thing. If I worked a little harder, produced an incredible show, wrote a best-selling book, anchored the morning news, won a Peabody Award, worked with the Special Olympics, then I would be les restless… I made the mistake of thinking that external accomplishments would bring me peace… Losing my job at NBC News was big. I identified myself with my job.”

Schriver says she’s not the person she was four years ago: now is content to ‘just be’, rather than live at an exhausting pace: “I thought being a workaholic was good; it isn’t. I regret that I didn’t take time to stop and enjoy my friends or to have intimate experiences with people in my life, to talk to them and be quiet with them. I was too busy running against my restlessness… I’ve tried to craft the job of First Lady into a role that reflects me. That’s about connecting people, empowering and inspiring them… I’m trying to live my life from my heart, being authentic to who I am… A friend of mine told me, “As long as you keep on playing the game of trying to be ‘the right Maria’ for everyone, you’re never going to deliver the real Maria. You don’t even know who the real Maria is’… The most terrifying thing of all for me was to just sit with myself; I didn’t know how to be alone… Being able to be by myself is part of knowing that I’m enough.”

This is a sentiment echoed in another of the magazine’s features, “You’re the fattest ballerina”, by Mary Wilshire, 54, an illustrator with a penchant for superheroes and comic books who has had compulsive eating issues her whole life, thanks, in part, to her alcoholic father, strict English Protestant background (appear to be perfect) and the suicide of her mother: “Feel compassion for yourself. What God wants from a girl is for her to be who she is. This is your highest spiritual purpose.”

Unfortunately, for most of us, it will take a lifetime of striving before we wake up one day and realise that the answer to who we are meant to be, how we should live our lives and what purpose we should serve is already within us – we’re just too busy climbing the career ladder, losing weight, raising families, fighting wrinkles, and meeting the world’s great post-feminist expectations to notice.

Overall excitement factor: 8
Feel-good factor: 8
Eye-candy rating: 2 (this is Oprah, not Vogue)

The Stats
Issue: June 2008
Book size: 246 pages
Inside front cover: Cadillac
Back cover: Covergirl
FOB ads: Target, Chanel gloss, Gillette (Tiger Woods), Citi, Chevy, Tiffany & Co…
Founder and Editorial Director: Oprah Winfrey
Editor in Chief: Amy Gross
Editor at Larger: Gayle King
Publisher: Hearst
Website: www.oprah.com

Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel

Girl in Media: Zoe Foster (Part 2)

As promised, my chat with primped.com.au's editor-in-chief Zoë Foster continues. And this time it's all about the book, baby. Needless to say, I personally enjoyed Air Kisses ($32.95; Penguin) very much. In fact, I read it in a weekend (and I have the attention span of a two-year-old).

The protagonist is Hannah, who has landed herself a job as beauty editor on Gloss magazine. Of course, the story is 'loosely' based on the year Zoë joined Cosmo, with a few romantic ups and downs thrown in for good chick-lit measure (it's not all about the magazine, y'know). The pace is quick, each (short) and wittily titled chapter (e.g. 'Sperm Brows'; 'The Bitchy and Scratchy Show'; 'I signed up for sitting at a desk and trying on lip gloss') opens with words of beauty advice (bonus!) and the characters are believable and endearing.

You'll love the mag industry insider insights (the advertising presentations; the launches), and though there are some 'issues' with other beauty editors on the scene (one in particular), this is no tell-all Devil Wears Prada tale (Zoë wants to keep friends in the industry, you see). Her writing style is Marian Keyes meets colloquial quirky Aussie (there are a few ocker-isms alongside the beauty-isms and Zoë-isms) and you'll find yourself stumbling across more than a few witty similes and metaphors, as you would shoes strewn over your floor.

Pucker up as Zoë puts on her author's hat...

Your father is also an author. Is writing in the genes? What pearls of wisdom was he able to share with you? Dad’s a brilliant writer. I can only hope of being one-tenth the writer he is. His best advice was on how to fictionalise people you wanted to use from Real Life so that they would never guess it was them. Of course, I never actually used this advice…

Other authors whose work you admire/love... Dave Barry, Chuck Klosterman, Jared Diamond, David Sedaris, Mark Haddon, Jonathan Safran Foer, Lemony Snicket, Marisha Pessl, Roald Dahl, Italo Calvino, Nancy Mitford... There are more, but as I’m moving, they’re all packed up and I can’t refer to my bookshelf for reminders. Apologies, temporarily forgotten authors, apologies.

Most influential childhood book... Italian Folktales, Italo Calvino.

Favourite ever book (or two)... Tough call. Some recenty ones that spring to mind: Marisha Pessl’s Special Topics in Calamity Physics, Jancee Dunn’s But Enough About Me and, of course, Eat Pray Love.

Did you always imagine becoming an author? No. In fact, dad actively dissuaded me from doing it. There’s no money in it! he’d cry. Get into advertising instead! Take up medicine! Learn to play tennis professionally! Become an actuary!

How did the book come about? I had been at Cosmo for a few years, and still enjoying it, but hungry for a new creative challenge. Mia [Freedman] suggested writing a book to keep me creatively fulfilled, and so I started jotting down anecdotes from the beauty world, imagining a Confessions of a Beauty Editor type thing. We soon (wisely) realised it needed to morph into a fully fictionalised novel in order for me to preserve my friendships and, uh, job.

When did you start writing it and how long did it take? It took a year to write (2006), while working full time at Cosmo.

What were some of the biggest challenges as a new author? Sitting inside writing on a gloriously sunny day while everyone else was out playing Frisbee and hopscotch and eating hokey pokey ice cream. Sustaining an interesting narrative pull for 100, 00 words was pretty tough too. Luckily, I had a magnificent editor who did magical things to my story.

I loved everything about the book – from the pace, to the chapter lengths, writing style, storylines, characters and cover (gush). Give us the mini version of the editing process... Mini version, you say… I submitted my finished manuscript to Penguin/my brilliant editor, Kirsten Abbott. She wrote me a document on themes/characters that needed embellishing, tightening or cutting. I did it. I gave it back. She went through and ‘line-edited’ the whole thing (soft copy) and marked up/commented on everything she thought needed work/changing/developing etc. I went through and responded to all of her remarks. I gave it back. This process may have happened again. She then gave it to a copy editor who subbed it. This is crucial as you become so close to characters and story, you don’t notice the fact that the apartment in the book has stairs one day and a lift the next.

Back to me in hard copy. I edited it. My editor edited it. The cover was presented to me. I fell in love instantly. (You don’t get to choose your cover, so I was thrilled to my gills that it was so spectacularly foxy). Back to me in uncorrected proof (book form). Very exciting moment. I made tiny changes. (It’s gobsmacking how different it reads once in book form. Small issued of incongruity or inconsistency leap up and slap you in the chops.) My editor gave it one last edit, I signed off on it, and it was off to get printed by the thousands of small penguins we employ on Phillip Island.

Do you think you'll keep your future works within the 'chick literature' genre? I do. I do indeed. I’ll flirt with other genres and non-fiction too, but I’ll certainly have a few more lattes in the Lady Fiction lounge.

How is the Aussie chick lit scene? We’ve got some very strong chick lit writers here, Maggie Alderson, Melanie La’Brooy, Monica McInerney are all wildly popular and successful writers. It’s a thrill to be mentioned in the same sentence as them. Oh, hang on, I wasn’t. Never mind. Carry on.

Can you tell us about the new book you're working on? It’s a thriller about a band of inebriated, recalcitrant possums who take over a small town using nothing but lemonade and coat buttons.

Zoë has signed a three-book deal with Penguin. Air Kisses is available now.

Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel

Girl in Media: Zoe Foster (Part 1)

Last night pretty Zoë Foster, 27, editor-in-chief of Primped.com.au, the beauty site set to take the 'net by storm when it launches next month, celebrated the launch of her debut novel, Air Kisses (shhh, the release is embargoed till next week – needless to say, it is fabulous).

Zoë is the kind of girl who reaps what she sows – her positive energy, humble, country-bred nature and fruity spirit (not to mention her quirky writing style and hot footy-pro beau) have brought her much career success and admiration (and, yeah, a little undeserved jealousy), putting her firmly in the 'girl you wanna be' category.

Here, we chat (mostly) about working the beauty beat in Sydney Mag Land, but do visit again next week for the next installment of my e-banter with Zoë, in which we chat about her book. So, to the Zoë story, part 1...

Where did you grow up/study/what did you study? I grew up in a picturesque little town called Bundanoon. It’s become all cool now. I mean, they serve aioli. Aioli! I studied Media and Communications at UNSW.

When did you move to the Big Smoke and how did you cope? I moved to Sydney when I was 17, in the seconds following my HSC results being dropped into our mailbox. I deferred for a year to work and play in the Big City before settling into study again. I desperately wish I’d travelled instead during that year, because mostly I was just broke and bored and doing enviable jobs like nightpacking at Coles, telemarketing and promo work.

How did you get your start in magazine publishing? And why magazines? I applied for any journo job going following graduation, because, well, I liked to write, and rumour had it some people would actually pay you for it. I ended up deputy editor of a kids magazine called Mania. Being horrifically underqualified, I firmly believe my “clever” CV got me in the door (I wrote it as if I were an eight-year-old boy). Of course, once in said door, I worked my arse off to prove myself. Helped that I had a cool editor: If she didn’t, uh, ‘get’ my CV, I may not be where I am now.

Which magazines did you read growing up? MAD (the only magazines I’ve ever kept), Hit Songwords, Smash Hits, Dolly, Girlfriend, Cleo, Cosmo, New Scientist (stop sniggering; Popular science is extremely underrated.)

Did you have any influential mentors or women you looked up to? [Former Cosmopolitan editor] Mia Freedman. I always thought she was cool and that she knew her stuff and was a clever writer and that I wanted to work under her one day.

Did you choose beauty editing or did it choose you? It chose me. I applied for a job at Dolly while working as Deputy at Smash Hits and, as usual, I was exceptionally underqualified. But Mia (who was then the EIC of Dolly) thankfully saw through all the nonsense and all the chutzpah and ended up offering me the beauty editor job at Cosmo a few months later.

How long were you beauty ed. at Cosmo? What was it like coming into the role as a beauty novice? 1. Three years. 2. Scary: A lot of those Fraud Complex feelings are reflected in Air Kisses. Thankfully the Cosmo girls were extraordinarily nice and very patient with a girl who had the style of a wombat and who, having tiptoed in from teen mags, showered every sentence with criminal amounts of these: !!

What was your weekly schedule like on Cosmo? Psychotic. Up to four functions a day and lots of blank word documents to satiate either side of that. As beauty and lifestyle editor, I had 10 beauty pages a month as well as a feature (usually on relationships, but sometimes on identity theft/drink-spiking/financial planning) and a dating column. Bee. See. But fun. A lot fun.

Your casual/quirky writing style on Cosmo was quite revolutionary for the mag (you even won a Jasmine Award for it - um, as you might recall). What was your beauty editing and writing ethos on the mag? I was lucky: both Mia and Sarah Wilson allowed me to explore and enjoy a very conversational, colloquial style of writing. I didn’t have a writing ethos, per se, just a warped sense of humour and a desire to make every topic, (blackheads inclusive) entertaining for the reader.

What is a common misconception about beauty editors? One widespread fallacy is that we must be good at everything regarding beauty. My orange ankles, uneven eyeliner and foundation lines prove that this is completely unsubstantiated.

Harper's BAZAAR - how did your role on the mag differ to your work on Cosmo? The BAZAAR reader demands a different style of writing to the Cosmo reader. I had to shift from being self-referential and silly, to sophisticated, subtly clever and elegant. It was excellent to be challenged in that way. I loved working under Alison. Cosmo, to me, always felt like a friend, a girl who was just like me. BAZAAR, on the other hand, offered a world of fantasy, desire, luxury and fashion that spanned to dizzying heights.

Did/do you ever feel pressure to 'look the part' on the beauty scene? I’m aware there is pressure, but I want and choose to look polished for work. I enjoy it. It’s not about being super massively fashionable and throwing your entire pay cheque at Belinda Seper (pleasurable as that would be), it’s about looking like you take pride in your appearance and representing your title well. Ultimately you are a physical representation of your magazine when you attend events on behalf of that title.

Major perks of being a beauty editor... I think we both know the answer to this one [GWAS - um, that would be the freebie product and services and canapes and champagne and junkets in Byron Bay].

Advice for girls considering beauty editing as a career... Strive to be a writer first. It will give you a whole lot more ammunition when you have to write about mascara in different ways each month/week.

Why did you start beauty blog Fruity Beauty? It’s two-fold. On one hand, back in 2005, I thought Cosmo needed a stronger online presence, and that a beauty blog could be a nice avenue into that. On the other hand, I felt like I had far too much information in my head about hair straightening/lipgloss/hair removal and not enough pages in the magazine to communicate all of it to the thousands of women out there who desperately needed to know about the benefits of dry shampoo.

How did Fruity evolve? She started as a kind of outlet for me, with just a few of my friends and beauty PRs logging in occasionally, and then, with a little bit of word of mouth and some press, she grew into a big bloggy mass, with thousands of members and not nearly enough posts to satiate them.

Tell us about Primped. There's a bit of buzz around the site - what's it all about and what can we hope to see when you launch in July? It’s a site just for beauty. No fashion, no gossip or relationships, just beauty. We launch in July, and I can’t wait to show it off: we’ve created all of these glorious videos, and tricky little widgets, and we’re using technology not seen before in Australia… the user experience is awfully enjoyable. The writing, advice and visual candy is paramount, of course, but there is an enormous focus on fun and entertainment, too. Beauty can easily become too serious, too earnest; I’m a big believer in keeping it fun. I guess it’s kind of like fruity… only 478 times bigger, with money, designers, producers, infrastructure, a whole team of amazing people, a whopping great office, sweet new laptops, a fridge with food in it, manifold blogs updated daily…

To be continued...

Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel

GWAS SPONSOR SPOT

Feel like a little post-lunch shopping snack? Then skip the vending machine and get thee to FrockYou– everything is still 35% off, like these cute-as-a-button 'Breezy Bow' ballet flats by Sunday, $59.95. I can imagine Zoë wearing them when she's having one of her beauty closet clear-out days (oh, yes, they happen: and things often get messy), which are promptly followed by beauty sale days, which involve a whole lot of feet-stomping, thereby requiring footwear with protection... like steel-cap boots.