1 year Wonderzine: Editorial about why this is all
Exactly one year ago, on June 3, we launched Wonderzine, the youngest project of Look At Media publishing house. So, next to publications for conscious citizens, representatives of creative industries, brave guys, businessmen and startups, a magazine appeared for conscious, creative, brave and enterprising girls. All this time we have been looking for adequate ways to talk about everything in the world - including the serious and the sad, the fun and the shameful, the clever and the foolish. We hope that more often we succeeded than not. Today, filled with a sense of our own importance, we decided to remind ourselves and you of why we are doing Wonder. And we won't stop.
If a year ago I was told that I would write a column of the editor, which would begin with the word "I", I would, well, you understand. However, a year ago I fell a little into a stupor when Vasya Esmanov and Lesha Ametov suggested that I move to a new edition for girls (then everything was thought out under the slogan “Magazine for girls who do not read women's magazines”, which caused tons of heite, but in fact it was true - we grew up on GQ, New Yorker and Esquire). I sighed that I didn’t know anything about women - and this, of course, wasn’t quite that, just the image that the media offered us did not resonate with me or my friends. Awareness of this naturally led to the idea that, yes, Wonderzine really matured. Since then, we have tried to grope human language and topics that we all want to write and read. They tried to understand what place Miley Cyrus and Kim Kardashian occupied in our picture of the world. We tried to convey that waiting for a new film by Kronenberg or a new album by Kim Gordon and at the same time thinking about how to make up your nails or what kind of shoes to buy, is normal. We were surprised when we were called rabid feminists, and even more surprised when we were called insufficiently feminists.
Honestly, we have already lived a little life: in our youth we tried to be as smarter and more beautiful, we got up, got a couple of kicks, learned something, eventually relaxed and became a little more like Louis C. Kay than Lena Dunham. You realize that the most successful headlines are jokes you can write on Facebook, and the best lesson at the end of the work week is to collect 20 hot Fifsbender gifs. What everyone is really interested in is how social networks change ideas about beauty, what is most lacking in space, why there are elastic socks in the world for 26 thousand rubles and what to do with curly hair in general. That everything, literally everything, is crazy about Prince Oberin. Most of all I want to believe that we managed to create the feeling “I am not the only one”. Personally, I have a feeling for sure now - on the eve, another woman editor-in-chief appeared in Look At Media. So we will win.
I will say a commonplace, but, damn it, it's true: the more mature you are, the faster the time runs. That's the first year of the Wonderzine best describes the word "fast." The first heroine of the Entertainment category - actress Emilia Clark - just a year ago, just became Khaleesi and at the same time role-playing model for millions of Game of Thrones viewers, today she is a real sex symbol, Sarah Connor in the new Terminator and the most free and powerful woman "Game of Thrones". For 12 months before our eyes, Miley Cyrus has rapidly grown up and slightly lost her mind, but Lord appeared, breathing new power into the gloomy teenage pop. We waited, got ready and finally survived the exit of both parts of the “Nymphomaniac” - and it was a hell of fun. They fell in love again with Matthew McConaughey and realized that his younger colleagues Gosling and Pattinson are struggling to go the same way - to say goodbye to the role of the sweetest sex symbols. You saw how, while everyone was getting out of their way, the wonderful Lupita Nyongo became the main IT gerl and the most beautiful rookie of the year. They tried hard, but they couldn’t see the entire first 24-hour video clip of Farrell. They wrote and read a lot about sex - because, yes, this is one of the main entertainments in our life (even in theory, for practice - under the heading "Life"). We dreamed of visiting the Timberlake concert at the age of 14 and finally got it in Moscow. You can list endlessly - it’s easy to list all the materials of the “Entertainment” section for a year ago, it took me half an hour, now imagine how long I can talk about each of them. Therefore, it is better that you still read our sample of the most beloved and class texts for the year, while we will write new ones and, I guarantee, they will be even more interesting.
Over the past year, I noticed one funny thing. When you talk with representatives of the gloss about their work, each of them separately highlights the hellish work and the lack of signs of a female editorial staff, that is, champagne, gossip and heels. We'll have to repent: we are all very frivolous. Sometimes it seems that we are scribbling everything in general and not seeing the facets. The question to the psychologist about how to survive the separation, instantly turns into "how to survive the separation with the blond", "how to survive the separation with the brunette" and "how to survive the death of the pet." Fun, for which half of the readers do not love us, and the other blames the quota for feminism, has long been a sign of the editorial board. When Masha Vorslav, the insanely beautiful editor of the “Beauty” section, defiantly laughs at successful jokes, although usually she is very serious and attentive, a kitten is saved somewhere. When editor-in-chief Katya Birger, the most sensible person in the editorial office, tries to let everyone else go, but then gives up, a puppy is taken from the shelter. For some kind of joke you are always afraid to go to hell, but it turns out that fun is the only way to fight life, which is, well, here. The realization that you still work in the editorial office, and not in the sitcom, comes only when you have to die with authors, PR services, readers in the comments and with yourself in an attempt to overcome the reuters block. Life this year has become much better, and each of us seems to have become kinder. Jokes about people we don’t like are never funny. So as long as we joke, we love you.
I really want to write that this year all the flowers bloomed, but in such a time scale changes usually do not occur. To tell the truth, nothing much has changed: cosmetics are made and bought, the thin body is still reference, the still expression “without make-up” still replaces honest “natural make-up”. In such stability and unhurriedness, however, there is time and a desire to deal with what is happening and interpret it - and therefore, to change the course of things and moods a little.
We are not without a lot talking about celebrities, when their actions fit into our picture of the world, about facs retouchers and new sunscreens. On the one hand, who cares about the subtle boy who runs a counter-patriarchal blog, Mindy Kaling's short top and, let's be honest, beards on a woman's face? On the other hand, these phenomena reflect and embody what we like in the world around us: self-irony, courage, care, sanity and sincerity. We want these qualities to show not only our role models, and therefore we try to pay attention to others as often as possible. Elaine Scarry, in her book on beauty and justice, quoted Wittgenstein (“When she sees something beautiful, she wants to draw it”) and developed the idea that beauty is programmed to reproduce itself — this is what we like to memorize. poems, look at the good "secrets" and discuss the fucking eighth episode of the fourth season of "Game of thrones". In the framework of the column of the same name (and all the others), we just try to record and pass on all the beautiful things that we manage to notice, whether it is the best shimmer in the world or the inspiring status of a brave student - and we intend to continue to do so.
The past 12 months were sometimes a triumph of sporting, street and minimalist styles, and by this spring everything reached a climax: Chanel released models in sneakers at a couture show, Belgian minimalist Raf Simons sat in the chair of creative director Christian Dior, Сéline will be legalized by ugly zan zaras u Céline collections, sportswear manufacturers are jubilant - workouts and sneakers are more than ever in motion. Fashion all the time shakes like a pendulum so that no one relaxes. A year later, maximalism replaced minimalism - in the coming autumn-winter season we will see designers from Prada to Sacai return excessiveness on the catwalks: we are waiting for op art and texturing for Alexander Wang, neon for Dries Van Noten, shiny sheepskin coats for Rodarte, crazy fur at Marni, plenty of glitter at Saint Laurent, maximally stretched sleeves at Marc Jacobs and a boom for ugly shoes. Otherwise, nothing will change - comfort and sportiness in 2014 remain key ideas. Most influenced by fashion States: musicians, movie stars, media, YouTube, Facebook, sports brands and people from the streets with a blown-up style, followed by, it seems, all the world stylists.
Yes, modern fashion is experiencing a crisis, strange sneakers are born, and young people adopt the style of older tourists - stupid Panamas and thick socks in combination with orthopedic hooks become, for a minute, the hit of the season. On the catwalks we see things that do not decorate, but, on the contrary, distort the female figure. Some critics considered the maximalism and ugliness of the end of 2014 the limit to which fashion could reach. On the other hand, there are no rules, you can relax - wear what you like. All this is explained by the only desire of the public - not to be fashionable. Jokes about the normcor are spreading more rapidly than about hipsters five years ago. True, to replace the maximalism in 2015 will come the ordinary and wearable. What is sad - we have not seen such boring collections as on the 2015 cruise for a long time. Although sensible people called for this more than once: Katie Horin and Susie Menkes spoke on this subject in an interview with Another Magazine once said that fashion is too flirtatious in intellectuality, and things should just close the body, give joy and a sense of harmony. On this background, fresh blood triumphs - young designers like Thomas Tate, Miuniku or Hood by Air, combining intellectual minimalism and maximalism. The benefit of the need for beauty will always be, but fashion is beautiful in its polarity, and that is why it is so interesting to write about it. And I want to believe, read too.
