In Vogue

As a dedicated lover, reader and consumer of Vogue, I would like to celebrate their much anticipated return to the glossy magazine stands.

Their bumper 360-page 50 year special has certainly reclaimed Vogue's dignity as Australia's true leading fashion-forward glossy. I would even go so far as to say it deserves to stand aside the other Vogues of the world who have a habit of trumpin it.
But no, this issue, the editorial is crisp, witty and informative and the fashion superb, with plenty to pore over on a three hour bus trip to Canberra.
Nice to have you back with us Vogue.

Media has two faces

The more I work in the media industry, the more I discover you don't get something for nothing.
Everything is tainted by advertising, marketing, promotions, sales, revenue, money. Everything has an alterior motive and an alterior purpose. Everything exists as simply another way to sell to the masses. What you're channelling isn't honest. It's fantastical, masked as reality. It's an opportunity to play on emotions. A purpose to sell wants, needs, lifestyles, romances. A vehicle for revenue.

This isn't some kind of sudden revelation I've come across. It's something you come to accept when you work in magazines. But sometimes, I wish what I was pouring my heart and soul into didn't result in this glossy, material artifact. I wish what I was producing was something pure, something without motive and purpose, something that is what it is without reason. But that can not exist in a world which relies on money to make it spin.

Summer is coming

Summer is coming. It is pending, like a credit card transaction. Reviewing its schedule and evaluating its creditentials before it formally declares itself as 'approved' and ready for use.

Today it gave us a preview, a reminder that its on its way. Blue skies, speckled clouds and bright, unabashed sun which defrosted the pavement and glared the eyes. I lay on the balcony in a singlet and shorts, willing it to tone my skin from winter white to that warm shade of summer honey. A shade I hadn't seen in months.

And just like the pavement, I felt myself slowly defrosting. The things that are able to hide in the cold and dark of the winter months, suddenly had no where to run. The sun had backed them into a corner and was melting them down. It was like crawling out of hibernation and being startled by how new, hopeful and familiar the world looks beneath the 29 degree heat.

A thin film of sand over every inch of skin. Sun-baking and salad sandwiches. Glasses of water dripping with perspiration and the gentle clink of cubes of ice. Cold showers. Bare feet. Bright dawns and brighter dusks.

Summer is coming. Summer is coming.

A Sale Tale

I just survived my first trade-only clothing sale. While I didn't leave with any dramatic 10 dollar bargains of which I can brag to my girlfriends about over Cosmopolitans, I did escape with a certain level of decorum and that's enough for me.

As I waited on the landing of the third flight of stairs, surrounded by women babbling like geese as they peered eagerly up the steps and at each other, I knew I didn't belong there. At all. These women were tingling with desperation, a burning desire which over-ruled everything. They were itching, eager and impatient. They knew what was waiting behind the doors of the forth floor was more than just a warehouse of Ladakh clothes at bargain prices. It was a new outfit to wear out that evening. The perfect date dress. That one item of clothing which could possibly change their lives. They were like bulls waiting at the gate, ready to bust into that room and grab as many items of clothing from as many racks as possible.

I'd heard about these kinds of sales before and the kind of women they attracted. They always sounded a little unbelievable, a stereotype which couldn't possibly exist because no one could be that shallow. No one could be that addicted to clothes that they were willing to check their sanity and common sense in at the door. Apparently not. These cashed and credited consumers do indeed exist and they were ready to spend as much time and money as necessary defending their material spirit.

As we crawled up the stairs and into the lobby of the holding room, the anticipation grew. A large glass pane was all that seperated these anxious women from their dream delight and through the pane, they could see what awaited them. Racks upon racks, piles upon piles, tables spilling with dresses, leggings, skirts, shirts, kaftans, pant suits, boob tubes, accessories and in the middle of it, those lucky women who had managed to get into the warehouse first. The nervous excitement heightened as the women around me watched in utter dispair as the lucky shoppers trawled through the racks. They could look, but they could not shop.

As people left the room with their cherished purchases, more were slowly let in. The women bustled, ready to jump start as soon as the door opened and they saw a break for freedom. As I finally made it into the room, the excited woman next to me gave me a wink and said, "Good luck!"

I'll take your luck and raise you some sanity.

As I tried to manoeuvre my way through the crowd, the more I felt like a loose coin being tossed through a tumble dryer. No matter where I turned, I came to face to face with the frenzy. Girls stripping off into their underwear as they tried on their prized discoveries, hopeful women clawing through the piles on the floor like bush turkeys and people tersely throwing discarded clothes aside as they moved from hanger to hanger. They were like seagulls and as soon as a fresh rack off clothes was brought out, they swarmed.

I moved hesitantly around the war zone; wire hangers left discarded on the ground like forgotten soldiers, clothes spilling out of boxes like lifeless bodies and frantic, red-faced women moving between the piles, searching, searching searching.

Soon it became too much. The air was rich with the stench of desperation and I could feel it developing like a film over my skin. Without having even picked up one article of clothing, I made my way for the door. As I swung it back and stepped across the threshold, I was pushed into the wall as a frantic women rushed past me and into the foray, her handbag gripped in one hand and her credit card in the other.

As I rode the lift back to reality, I knew I had learnt my lesson. A 10 dollar Ladakh dress may be a bargain, but your dignity is priceless.

Open To The Public

There are some people who are desperate to lay everything on the table. Every feeling, every urge, every inner emotion whether it be attraction or lust or longing, they willingly lay it bare like it means nothing for the world to see it in all it's fullness. While the rest of us shy away from our inner wants or try to pass them off as other things, these brave people put everything they know and want and feel out in the open, for everyone to see and for anyone to mock.

Is this confidence? This ability to be brutally honest with one's self and the world? Or is honesty dressed in desperation? People so worried they might lose everything, they are too terrified to pretend everything doesn't matter to them.

It must be awfully liberating, to stand alone in one's personal, emotional rubbish and openly declare it belongs to them. To wear their hopeful heart on their shoulder or their shattered expectations like lines on their face. These poeple who own their every emotion, who are not afraid of the way they feel.

Maybe we should be more like them. More honest with the world, more honest with ourselves. But for those of us who push our personal, emotional rubbish into the corner and hope people don't notice it sitting there, we know there are just some things we don't want the world to see and some things we don't want to see in ourselves.

(Image Credit: thesartorialist.blogspot.com - May 7, 2009)

New Beginnings

I remember when I first moved to this city. I remember driving down the Pacific Highway towards Sydney, a stretch of endless blue sky running like a ribbon across the horizon. As I drove, I remember feeling like I was leaving my old life behind me. A life of sweet immaturity, innocence and naivety, where safety and security lay embedded in friendships and familiarity. But in front of me, lay nothing but pure possibility.

Before my very eyes, this city rose up from the horizon. A postcard of skyscrapers and on-ramps which twisted in and out of each other. What lay between them were streets I'd never walked down, faces I'd never seen or spoken to. Once again, I was a no one. Just another face in the crowd. And it felt like freedom.

At the toll gate, I exchanged my life of sweet immaturity, innocence and naivety. Like spare change, I cashed it in without a second glance and in return, received a life of value and responsibility. A life of adulthood.

Sometimes, I worry I didn't give that moment what it truly deserved. That my desperation to finally live this life of 'value' blinded me from appreciating what it was I was giving up. Sometimes, I find myself remembering it and there's a pull in my heart which I think resembles yearning. That comfortable old life, where the streets are familiar and the faces are my friends. Where responsibiliy is just another word brushed under the carpet and immaturity is worn with the same pride as a Purple Heart.

Sometimes, I do feel too young for this. Like I flew the nest too soon. I got what I wanted. Value, responsibility, adulthood. But what I cashed in at the toll gate was more than just my old life. It was everything I both did and didn't do. Foolishness. Travel. Adventure. And now the days begin early and finish late and everything that happens in between is just a desperate attempt to make it to the weekend. And it is as if every day I am demanded the one thing I can not give - life experience.

But some days, when I look out the window and see this city rising up from the ground like it did the first time I saw it or I'm walking down the street or driving down the road, without warning, I realise. This is just the beginning. The first chapter, the first page, the first paragraph and what lies beyond it is a story riddled by possibility and potential.

No, coming here was the not the end. It is the beginning.

(Image Credit: thesartorialist.blogspot.com - April 30, 2009)