Magazine columns are a tricky area. I, myself have been asked by a good friend to write a column for her magazine that touches on my move to New Zealand and the experiences I will be encountering on my big adventure.
In all honesty, I am struggling to get my first article of the ground and have taken to doing some magazine research on regular contributing columnists for popular women’s magazines.
Magazines such as Marie Claire and Vanity Fair often offer an array of think pieces and largely intelligent journalism that I generally appreciate and respect. Unfortunately, these are really the only exceptions. As a rule, the rest of the magazine market, which I suspect is even more widely available; offer a slightly different tone of voice for their regular columns, often choosing to focus solely on men, love and sex.
As a general rule, I have a rather strong dislike for columnists who write articles based on their lives and personal experience. It’s a little harsh to say, but unless I know the person or am interested in their career – I simply don’t really care.
I suppose you could argue that’s what blogs are for and essentially this is what I’m doing, but blogs as a general rule are opinion pieces and operate under a completely different arena. I hope that I make my blog interesting by talking about subjects of interest to my reader, as opposed to voicing all my inner thoughts and feelings as and when they occur - I’m targeting Carrie Bradshaw style columnists in particular. Back in the late 90’s, It worked for the fictional Miss B because the concept was relatively new and exciting; men and sex will always be somewhat taboo subjects (although I can’t really fathom why) and in all fairness, I think most women enjoy a good gossip every now and again.
Recently, I’ve been noticing a trend in the content of certain magazines that seem to rely solely on opinion pieces from columnists, to fill the feature pages. And they are all about men. ALL about men! Men, relationships and sex. As if that’s all we’re interested in!
Come on ladies, is that really all we’re interested in? It’s bad enough that the women’s lifestyle market leans heavily on celebrity, tabloid-style “news” to fill the column inches. Now it seems that the culture of ‘chick lit’ has spilled into our magazine media and is seemingly inescapable.
As a young woman at the tender age of 26, I strive to create a decent balance between my interests, my work life and my relationships with others. Men, of course, fall under this umbrella and I, like every other girl my age, love to talk with my friends about love, sex and everything in between.
I like to think I’m smart enough to know that men aren’t the be all and end all of our existence. It could be perceived as belligerent to argue that self-preservation is key to our existence, but isn’t that what equality is all about? And if my opinion is the case, then why can’t women’s magazine access this concept and provide us with something a little more holistically…..useful to our survival?!
Those of you who know me will know I studied feminism as part of my degree at University and was lucky enough to work with some incredible women (lecturers, PHD students and fellow students) who published some brilliant, brilliant work. I wouldn’t go so far as to describe myself as a feminist, but I strongly value intelligent, interesting writing that not only broadens the mind, but also encourages the reader to rethink the way they view a particular subject matter.
It’s this kind of writing that should be more widely available. I don’t particularly feel that I could tackle this style myself, but I do know that I would love to see more of it in women’s magazines.
This magazine I am writing for strives to fill this gaping hole in the market that screams for a women’s magazine with rich content. It covers fashion, travel, adventure, art, beauty, music and culture. It’s a magazine that other magazines should sit up, take notice of and respond with the following: “Oh! Women have REAL interests besides men and sex? Why didn’t we think of that?!”
We really do have other interests besides our relationships and sex with men and it would a huge step forward if someone would write about those interests every once in a while, ideally in the form of a regular column. The fictional, media-generated, Carrie Bradshaw notion of journalism has had its day and its time the women’s magazine market refocused its position on what women actually want.
This week has been spent sourcing clothes, visiting designers, shooting the biggest Remix fashion spread of the year, dressing the models at said photoshoot and then running around the city returning all the clothes.
Obviously I’ve loved every minute of it.
The shoot took place on Tuesday at a Studio tucked away in Mount Eden. With four of us on hand to do all of the styling, we managed to get 23 looks in just 7 hours, which is amazingly fast.
Aside from team Remix at the styling helm, we had the very, VERY talented Marissa Findlay photographing the entire shoot. I was so impressed by her creative vision, which of course sounds really pretentious coming from me, but it is brilliant to watch a photographer direct the whole look and be able to get the very best out of the models.
The girls and I all took to styling certain looks. I’m not sure how much I can really say about what the spread is going to be, but it features all of New Zealand’s top designers and will definitely be one to watch out for. I styled up looks for Zambesi, Kate Sylvester, Karen Walker and Moochi. I also discovered a newfound skill in styling menswear. I didn’t think I had it in me, but it turns out that when you have to dress a gorgeous male model, you don’t really think twice! Who knew?! So unprofessional, I know, but it’s a perk of the job!
I can’t wait to post more about the shoot. Stay tuned for some sneaky peeks and behind the scenes shots. I’ll try and filter out the volume of male models…..oops.
xxx
Round these parts, Karen Walker is something of a local god. In fact, Karen Walker is known across the worldwide fashion-sphere, for being one, if not the, most important fashion designer to hail from New Zealand.
Clothing, eyewear, jewellery and accessories, Karen does it all. Her designs are stocked in over 600 stores worldwide, including 5 flagship stores in New Zealand, Remix magazine absolutely loves Karen Walker clothes and we’ll be featuring many items from both the current and forthcoming collections quite heavily in the next issue.
Dubbed as original, effortless and unpretentious, KW’s style is so easy to love. Favoured by celebs such as Rihanna, Sienna Millar, Natalie Portman and Florence Welch, there will always be something to suit everyone in each collection. Another reason to get on board this fashion train, is the Karen Walker is very generous with it’s sizes. As recently discovered, their sample sizing tends to be an 8-10, compared to the usual size 6. For me and my shape, the pink jumpsuit (see above) and jackets with cinched in waists are perfect. Of course, I’m not quite at the Karen Walker level of spending, but it’s nice to have something to aim for! xxx
Our Friday night saw us heading over to Albert Park in the centre of Auckland for the annual Lantern Festival.
Excuse the Stephen Fry language, but what a sight to behold. The trees, grass and paths were all adorned with beautiful lanterns, all in different styles and shapes.
I’ve never seen anything like it and spent a high percentage of the time wondering around with my mouth and eyes wide open. Extra special, is the fact we’re entering the year of the dragon, which is meant to be extremely lucky. The luckiest of all. I’m an Ox, which is not exactly cool, but if you’d like your future children to share this joyous omen, I’d reccomend you concieve now. Literally, NOW.
Personally, I’m happy with the thought that this year could be the luckiest of all, so excitedly took to the festival like it was Christmas. I love a special occasion. I also love lights. So, being the brilliant friend that he is, Rob brought me my very own lantern, and later a rose tea to accompany my tofu noodles. The Asian street food in Auckland tends to be amazing and the festival food certainly didn’t disapoint.
A particular highlight of the evening was clearly the Chinese Robbie Williams, who raised more than a few laughs from the crowd - though I suspect not intentionally….
