The One with the Magazines

If I were young, single and ambitious, I would want to go work at a fashion magazine. I can’t explain how this fascination has trickled into my being, but here it is. It must’ve always been lapping at my toes, but out of nowhere, it has just washed over me.

It is so odd, if you’ve ever seen me, to know that I love clothes and fashion so much. I don’t own designer duds and am not able to identify them whatsoever. I rarely wear anything besides jeans, flip flops and the tank top du jour. However, as of late, all I want when it comes time to be showered with gifts is clothes. They are art for the body.

Perhaps I should’ve seen it coming. When I was a teenager, I never missed a month of Seventeen Magazine. As a graduate student, my unfinished thesis focused on the differences between womens' and mens' roles in magazine advertisements. For my first three years in South Florida, I worked for a modeling agency. Day in and day out, I was booking models in magazines. I was learning the difference between “features” and “stories,” the importance of a “single-girl story” or a “full page beauty.” It is here that I pause and think, “Doh! That’s when I should’ve pounced on an opportunity or at least created one for myself.” I wanted so badly to be the one on the other end organizing the shoots, booking the models, arranging the travel, making sure the clothes (oh! the glorious clothes!) were in the right place at the right time, and just sinking my teeth into all of those seemingly mundane details that make everything perfect. But alas, I let it all wash back out to sea while I continued to drift.

I got out of that business totally and began focusing on other things—namely, the Little Lady—so there’s nothing wrong with that! I did, however, continue to find myself more and more intrigued by clothes and peoples’ personal styles. Maybe it was just my subconscious desperately trying to envision me in something other than maternity and post-partum clothes. Whatever it was, watching “The Devil Wears Prada” every day on maternity leave didn’t help it go away.

I’ve seen some reality shows about working for major magazines lately, and I really am captivated by all that is involved—from how they dress at work, to the meetings where the editor tells them it’s all crap, to the photo shoots and of course, the writing. What I do find somewhat astounding is that someone can write a 3-page article about the shoulder-length haircut…and that people will read it! I will admit, when I read that particular article I got a bit steamed. How do you even fill three pages with words about one haircut? Not to mention that the author was claiming to have been the first to have the shoulder-length haircut, and I’ve got a sixth grade spring portrait that begs to differ.

Regardless of what may seem shallow or irrelevant, fashion magazines and the offices that produce them are a respectable business. A certain degree of intelligence and journalistic ability is a must, creativity and foresight are key, and the industry does carve out a major chunk of our modern culture. And then there are the clothes and the shoes!

One day I will find a way to sail into the world of fashion, but for now I am comfortably coming to terms with the fact that I can still be footloose and fancy-free while simultaneously being aware of how I look.