ELLE 1985 / ELLE 2010
On the 2nd of May I celebrated my 25th birthday. 25 whole years! A quarter of a century is a milestone by any standards, and I defy anybody on the dawn of their 25th year of living not to find themselves submerged in a period of inner reflection and contemplation. Does my life at 25 look how I pictured it at 15? Do I posses all the universally agreed upon components that make up something approaching happiness? Am I content with my lot at this stage in my life?
Well, yes actually. As I write this I am sat in bed, in a small cottage with white washed walls, in rural Sardinia. My boyfriend, the love of my life for the greater part of a decade, is happily snoozing next to me, and my phone (which will remain switch off for the duration of our holiday) is full of messages from friends and family, gleefully congratulating me on the job offer I received Thursday morning (as I stood in line for check-in at Gatwick airport. If ever there was a great prelude to a holiday it’s news like that).
So funny that the year I was dreading (mainly due to the impending doom of wrinkles, grey hair and ‘the primary child baring years’ which I am not ready to accept or deal with quite yet) has offered up the final piece of the puzzle. No sooner had I blown out the candles on my birthday cupcakes than I was popping a Prosecco cork in celebration of steady employment (with real sterling pounds entering my Natwest account on a monthly basis. The same amount each month without the hassle of invoices etc. Just imagine! Life as a normal person!). Equilibrium is mine at long last.
Anyway, I apologise for the self-congratulatory back patting. The dual purpose of this post was to also raise a glass in celebration of another 25th birthday. UK ELLE, probably my favourite magazine in the entire world, is also hitting that quarter-century milestone, and I thought it apt – seeing as it was a catalyst in my decision to become a fashion writer – to dedicate this post to the publication.
I was nine when I bought my very first copy. It was 1994, and the cover displayed a brooding Jennifer Aniston (pre the Brad divorce, and subsequent ‘maneater’ years) in moody black and white. I don’t think I actually bothered reading the features at the time – simply tore out the images that caught my eye and Blu-Tacked them to my bedroom walls.
In fact it wasn’t until a decade later, my fresher’s year at uni, that I started to truly appreciate the quality of the writing. Pretty much anybody can administer the low down on whatever trend we should be buying into this season (though it should be noted that they do an outstanding job of this too), but to consistently tap into the status quo of the twenty-something woman, and print articulate considered features that speak to girls like me is a more complex skill. It’s the reason I reach for ELLE over Vogue almost every time (one exception to this rule was when Vogue ran a story titled ‘Poo; The Last Taboo’. Props to Alexandra Schulman for commissioning such a bizarre and seemingly un-Vogue story. Let me assure you if was fascinating!). I appreciate the magazine’s regular feminist articles with their frank detailing of subjects like multiple abortions. These are emotive topics that must be spoken about, but they are also topics that require a great deal of sensitivity, and ELLE achieves that difficult balance every month.
I also have to mention the publication’s art direction and styling – it’s incredible. Ann-Marie Curtis transforms every celebrity she styles – pushing them way out of their comfort zones. Eva Longoria, to highlight just one example, is obviously extremely gorgeous, but always exuded an ostentatious, brassy sort of beauty to my mind. ELLE striped back the excess Hollywood gloss, the loud girlie outfits, the ‘over styled’ quality of her look (forgive me Eva), and replaced it with simple hair and make-up – a nude eye shadow, a red lip, a pony-tail – and a black leather biker jacket. Please believe me when I say she was barely recognizable.
And the subscriber’s covers! Could there be a more elegant representation of the softness of Spring than this June cover of Kylie. It’s like a shower of pink blossom petals just blew, confetti-like, across the photographer’s lens.
Cheers ELLE! Happy birthday, and here’s to both of us having 25 more years just as prosperous, exciting, and joy-filled as the last…
