Posts Tagged ‘magazines’

Prettify your home with old magazines

May 4th, 2009

Those of you who have been to my house know that I have masses of hallway walls, and when my hallway isn’t crammed full of girls fighting teeth and nail for the best clothes in a clothing swap, it can be a little empty and white and boring, so I decided that I needed some art to cheer it up.

One pile of old Frankie magazines later, I had a bunch of pretty pictures ready to go into some frames I got for $2 each at the Warehouse. Glee! I adore Frankie’s artwork, their posters adorn my bedroom walls. I have a whole bunch of other pictures that I might try making into photoblocks with instructions from Miss Sue.

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Mag review: M2Woman autumn 2009

April 15th, 2009

So there’s been a men’s magazine in NZ for a while called M2, and apparently they have launched a women’s magazine, and I bought issue two when I went to Tauranga, for lighthearted entertainment and the free sunscreen sample. It’s not a magazine I would bother buying again really, even if the name didn’t sound so much like a sleazy personal ad (actually that link is hilarious, not sleazy). Here’s my notes on the good and bad:

  • Good: that when they do the interviews with women on the street, they ask them about buying NZ products and if they’ve had a molemap, as well as asking them about the latest trends and destinations.
  • Bad: they lack basic fact-checking. In the events page, they say that Coldplay have never played in New Zealand before, but I’ve seen them at the Big Day Out (from the stands, I didn’t really care for them) and I know they’ve played the Logan Campbell Centre, and probably at least another gig as well. This makes me ANGRY!
  • Good: at least their review of The Women calls it “predictable fun and a girl fest”, which is totally the nice way of saying “it’s shit”.
  • Good: their holiday destinations are Oman and Venezuela, and they’re written by locals, which is an interesting change from Thailand/London/The Pacific.
  • Bad: their interview with Anne Hathaway, which has admittedly gorgeous pictures, is even more banal than most women’s magazines interviews are, as it’s all about her new contract with Lancome.
  • Good: they did a photoshoot on the Mouraki Boulders. Pretty!
  • Bad: there is a totally nonsensical article that surely exists only because Southern Cross put out a press release that loosely body image and child health (and when I say “loosely” I mean like Karl Lagerfeld wearing Beth Ditto’s panties x1000) and they try to drag out the article as a ‘theme’ throughout the magazine which means that the (one page! but listed on the cover!) story about Jeanette Thomas is subtitled “TV and radio star, Jeanette Thomas, on being a mum, getting her carpets cleaned and body image vs child welfare”, which at 20 words is nearly as long as this whole part:

    “A recent survey suggests that we care more about body image than the health of our children. What do you make of this?”

    “Not very much.”

    Heh. Okay, so I did cut short her answer, but really, it was lame.

  • Good: I really like the headpieces made out of flowers in the wildflowers fashion shoot.

So yes, seriously light on content, design that makes advertorial look like editorial & vice versa and nothing memorable to take away (I had to look up my notes to write this). Yawn. It joins the pile of old magazines I have to give away (which I will post about as soon as I’ve done an inventory).

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For your glamorous benefit

September 14th, 2008

If you happen to be browsing the magazine racks somewhere, and you see a small British Glamour magazine with a free lip gloss – the July edition – buy it. Not for the magazine itself, because it is truly truly hollow and the article on cleavage at work was particularly misogynistic, but rather because the attached lip gloss is the best lip gloss I have ever used. And that’s a bloody big call from someone who has as many lip glosses on her at one time that most people would have in a lifetime. It’s a UK company called Benefit, and their ‘‘Her Glossiness’ lip gloss sells for 13 pounds – or $40NZ. Glamour costs $8. You do the maths. The lip gloss goes on slickly, and makes your lips look beautiful and smooth, even if you’re in the middle of Sickness of Death.

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We read it so you don’t have to: Madison August 2008

August 21st, 2008

Straight off, I bought Madison because I was in the mood for a trashy weekend/holiday read. and while it was $8.95, it offered a free Napoleon Chocolate Kiss lipgloss valued at $25. In fact, I got two of them, and you can win one simply by posting a video of you pretending to be America’s Next Top Model. And I really like this stuff, so I recommend that you do enter. Anyways, so to the magazine. I think it’s aiming to be Marie Claire rather than Cosmo or Vogue, but its intellectual stories fall far from the mark. Their pieces on identity theft are boring – although they get to do the traditional “IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU!!! OMG!!!” sidebar, the piece about the New Jersey rich man who OD’d on cocaine has no relevance to their Australian audience – he’s not even hot – and their cover story on Madonna I have read before on the internet. Oh yeah, and by the way, the answer to their cover question “Is your salary affecting your sex life?” is “yes, rich people get more sex” apparently, but they don’t rank it according to the salary of women themselves. After all, you’re living off your partner’s income, right? And he’d like you to buy some more Louis Vuitton (FYI Microsoft Spellcheck totally gives you the correct spelling for that, while Linux, which is what I’m running, suggests “Louis Spittoon”. Open Source FOR THE WIN!) luggage, right? And maybe have a facelift so you’re pretty enough for him.

There’s a piece on how Sally from Home and Away is now on the radio now with two larrikans, and they’ve photographed her in this white floaty ball dress. However, you see the thing is, I’ve grown up with Sally, and whilst I’ve been spreading rumours she starred in a porno, I’ve also noticed that she has somewhat of a chest on her. The model in this flat white ball dress? Not so much. They have airbrushed her waist down to nothingness, and have given her a Gwyneth Paltrow chest while her head is larger than her body. If they hadn’t put her in a lowcut stripey dress in another photo, with her waist tucked behind her arm, and if it hadn’t been for those pesky kids, they would have gotten away with it!

As for fashion shoots, they do a Homer-age to Brooke Shields in Calvin Klein with a brunette model wearing tight faded jeans. Please please please tell me that bleached denim is not coming back in fashion. I do not want to believe it. Also they have a shoot called ‘Jump To It’ which looks like an ANTM shoot (blonde girl jumping in the air in front of a bunch of hot guys/distractions) who looks like Kristen Johnston playing Betty Grable. I like the bright colours of the dresses, but there are too many puff balls for me.

To summarise, don’t buy. It doesn’t have the trashiness of Cosmo, or the “well, at least I am learning about the women of the world” like Marie Claire. Just win my lip gloss, and we’ll all be winners.

PS: Check out Glossed Over’s live-blogging of the big thick Vogue

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