Is TASTEMAKER the new FASHIONISTA?

Working on a copywriting gig recently, I chose to use the word ‘tastemaker’. Now this is a pretentious term, some might use the word ‘wanky’, yet it has a cachet about it I like; it certainly cocks a leg all over the word ‘trendsetter’ which seems very 1920s to me.

The way words come in and out of fashion intrigues me. Often working with clients, you will be told that so-and-so “loathes the word trend” or she-who-must-be-obeyed “prefers to be referred to as an aficionado rather than an expert”. Strange but true.

Some people manage the words used in connection with their personage as closely as they manage their wardrobe. People with a strong sense of their own BRAND – and isn’t that THE word of the last 20 years? – also have a strong grasp on the language used to describe themselves or anything they touch.

I find words seep into the mind like a tenacious germ. You’re not even aware that you’re hearing them again and again but you are and soon you’ll be using them, or consciously not using them, as the case may be.

Words get so fashionable that clients will request them and readers will expect them. To not use them begins to look odd; like you don’t have your finger on that elusive pulse some of us are chasing.

‘Fashionista’ was one of those words. I still CANNOT BELIEVE it took off. I first became aware of it about 15 years ago when working in fashion. As a germ it was just starting to spread from scented handkerchief to laptop and keyboard and I took some antibiotics and attempted resistance. It just was NOT English. Fashionista? It sounded like something Kath and Kim would say, not a word The Guardian newspaper would use. But, of course, they did!

And – SO DID I – eventually!

How could I not? It looked like I didn’t know what industry I was writing for if I ignored it. It would be the same as – now – trying to pretend I have never, even taken a peep at one of the Kardashian shows. Madness.

So now I am getting behind the launch of ‘tastemaker’ as the hot term in Australian journalism and copywriting circles. Architectural Digest has been using it slavishly since its new editor took over. Margaret Russell, she of the elegant shift dress and constantly evolving editor’s head shot, must love it. Who am I to argue? She’s very big into “respecting the brand’s DNA” when it comes to that mag. Part of that DNA is celebrating tastemakers. I’m on board!

Writing about property can prove addictive!

Property developments are proving to be wonderful projects for the jobbing writer. As a subscriber of Architectural Digest and a frustrated interior decorator, it is delightful to tiptoe off to luxury skyscraper land and imagine what life would be like there. It’s also wonderful to learn about the special nuances and crafty details various designers and developers put into their projects. Now I just need to write enough of these things to fund some property investments of my own. Hee hee.

Brochure to come: http://199william.com.au/

One of my favourite times of year

August in Melbourne is wonderful for many reasons, one of them being the Melbourne Writers Festival. I am all revved up to attend a taping of The First Tuesday Book Club, sit in on the “Keynote Event” – Jonathan Franzen and hear Ann Patchett, and Jane Sullivan in conversation. My Book Club, as it happens, is currently tackling Ann’s STATE OF WONDER, making it doubly interesting.

Issue 4 in stores now

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Go tohttp://getcreativequarterly.com/issues/GCQ-Issue-04.pdf to see the mag online or pop into your nearest Spotlight store in Aus, NZ or Singapore.

Finally fathoming Facebook

Over the years numerous clients, colleagues and pals have discussed having websites and blogs and the rest. Many small companies discover that keeping sites up to date is too time consuming amidst actually keeping their ‘real’ businesses going.

Facebook and Twitter are often topics of discussion at dinner parties. Are they a waste of time? Who uses them? Will they lose traction soon?

I’ve had the chance in recent times to play with Facebook in a totally new way. The magazine I edit now has a Facebook page (www.facebook.com/gcqmag) and I’ve been tasked with getting its audience up from 500 or so to 20, 000 or thereabouts. 

No problemo says I.

Now I’m actually finding myself really enjoying the task of learning how people who are not my pals use Facebook, how companies can use it and what makes people LIKE your Facebook entity.

As of today we’re at about 697 people ‘liking’ us. I’m out of deadline zone and have just notched up a plan for June to get some more traffic rolling through. I’m being both studious and professional (read Mitch Joel’s Six Pixels of Separation – http://www.twistimage.com/book/) and organic and fan-like in turn, looking at some of the science behind mastering social networking along with gut feelings about how I as a punter (and a magazine reader) might like to use it too.

I won’t give away my ideas now. Let’s see how my numbers stack up by mid July. Who knows, other clients might want to pay to up their LIKE quotas? I could become Director of Liking. I like it!

The Fashion Festival programme is out

And I am proud to have been this year’s house writer – preparing text for the programme and contributing to the Festival’s website. A great gig and a great event!

Dowload the programme in pdf form at http://www.lmff.com.au/2010/uploads//2011creative/LMFF_2011_Official_Program.PDF

Long time between issues

Working on a quarterly magazine can mean it seems such   a   long   time   between when each issue pops up. Issue # 2 of GET CREATIVE QUARTERLY has finally arrived in stores to a warm reception. Helping it along is the new little blog we’ve introduced and which I will be writing.

I had the strange pleasure of interviewing another journalist for this issue, the much loved fashion fave and novelist, Maggie Alderson. See http://spotlight.com.au/catalogues/get-creative-quarterly-issue-2?page=33 to read.

And visit our blog, which feeds directly into the Facebook page of the magazine’s owner, Spotlight, and is serving well to open up dialogue between the publication and its readers. Don’t we love technology? get-creative-quarterly.tumblr.com

Why I still love magazines

Almost every month The New Yorker runs an ad from the Magazine Publishers of America called, ‘Magazines – the power of print’. The campaign has a website at powerofmagazines.com where you can find out more. You hear so much about the death of print and yet I am not alone in still coveting various magazines although, admittedly, these days I only subscribe to Architectural Digest (AD) and The New Yorker and pick up other local and international mags intermittently.

I’ll share with you a Sherlock worthy tale, however, of why mags still have a hold over me and why I never underestimate their powers. In May last year I read about a woman called Pat Montandon in an AD article titled, as only AD could title something, ‘The Author and Global Peace Activist Designs for Herself in Beverly Hills’. It went on to talk about Pat’s “three-level, 4,000-square-foot European-style villa in Beverly Hills”. It also discussed her scandalous divorce to a mega millionaire, her numerous trips to Russia with her Foundation, ‘Children as the Peacemakers’, and the fact that she was the inspiration for one of the less savoury characters in Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City, a series of books I loved in my late teens and early twenties.

Who was this woman and why the hell had I never heard of her before? I turned to my untrusty research assistant, Google, and within a few clicks discovered it was not Pat I would pursue but her son, Sean, who had written a memoir about his mother – a woman who, upon discovering she’d been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, admits to putting off a face-lift. I love it!

Sean Wilsey’s book, Oh the Glory of It All, was published in 2005 and I bought it second hand on Amazon (I know. I am helping to destroy Australian book store culture but it was a first edition and I didn’t have to leave my office to get it.) I won’t go into the story now – get the book – suffice to say you will never – NEVER – complain about your family once you’ve read this account.

My point is that I learned SO MUCH and went on such a journey of ideas and information all because of a magazine article that was, on the surface, concerned with interior decoration. How great is that?

Not everyone loves AD. The design is very traditional, monied American and consumption and capatilism are its stock and trade (which other mags can devote entire sections to interior decorating your ocean going sea vessel or your private jet?) but that’s kind of the sick appeal of it all. AND the journalists really do write well. No, really! And, yes, I would kill to do an article for them.

Don’t say goodbye to magazines yet, just say hello to quality ones with real journos, not just people with phone cameras and spray tans. There are great mags everywhere that still employ good, intelligent writers who could still research a story if Wikipedia crashed. Keep your sticky notes next to you when you read, or record a note on your phone. Use the mags to stimulate your own research and discovery trip and these printed little pals become portals, not just something to sit beside the loo.

Writing about jewellery

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away I had the challenging but, in hindsight, really wonderful job of editing a jewellery magazine. The publishing company has changed, the magazine has changed its names and many editors have been and gone but, in the last couple of years, I have had the pleasure of being asked back to write a couple of pieces. You can find one here:

http://www.jewellermagazine.com/Article.aspx?id=1168&h=A-charmed-future%3f

And who says you can never go home?

Get Creative Quarterly is now in stores

Julia reacts after reading my latest Tweet

Well the first issue of the magazine I edit is now in Spotlight stores across Australia, New Zealand and, yep, even Singapore.

See a little info about it at http://www.spotlight.com.au/catalogues/get-creative-quarterly

Admittedly it is free (to VIP Club Members) but the phone in at HQ is running hot for more copies so I am just going to take that as a vote of confidence.

Working on issue 2 currently I had the pleasure of (today) interviewing Maggie Alderson about vintage clothing and her new book, Shall We Dance? though I confess we traversed a million other topics too. She is an active  Twitter(er) and blogger and has a huge following in both areas. Many of the attendees at her book signings have already forged a relationship with her in this way. Fascinating!

Speaking of Twitter you can find me at @TheMrsUnderhill and the amazing thing I discovered today is that our Prime Minister Julia is now following me. What?

Now when I watch Question Time and see her looking at her lap I’ll know she’s actually eyeing off her Blackberry to see what my latest update is. Naturally!