Make Magazines Great Again

ELLEgirl, aspirations and falling out of love with women’s media

Some extremely lo-fi Google image search finds…ELLEgirl magazine, circa 2005

When I was about 14, I was given a six-month subscription to ELLEgirl magazine as a birthday present. The first issue I received had a glossy, red cover with Coronation Street’s Tina O’Brien on the front. Her cover look was a glowy, close-up beauty shot with a vintage feel that was everywhere at the time. The headlines focused on fashion and style, alongside real-life features and a smattering of dating stories. As a young teen who had outgrown Mizz and Shout magazine but was too young for Cosmopolitan and too shy for Sugar, this shiny tome seemed like the glamourous, grown-up launch pad that I had been looking for.

ELLEgirl was the cooler, younger sister of ELLE magazine. Launched in the US in 2001, its shelf-life was sadly short, closing just five years later in 2006. ELLEgirl’s strapline was ‘Dare to be different’ and it threw me into a world of fashion and culture that was a million miles away from my quiet, small city life.

Reading ELLEgirl felt like being in a secret club (which, from a commercial point of view, probably explains its short print life). It wasn’t stocked in very many places - you had to go to the Big Tescos in the hope of snagging a copy - and I only had one other friend who I knew that read it. A new issue of ELLEgirl was a big deal; whenever the latest edition hit the shelves, we would text each other as soon as one of us found a copy. We would save reading it and instead, have our first look together over the phone. I would sit cross-legged on my bed and we would flick through the pages together, reading stories aloud and stopping one another to exclaim over a beautiful bag or a super cool shoot.

ELLEgirl was where I read about ‘It Girls’ like Alexa Chung, Chloë Sevigny and Maggie Gyllenhaal for the first time. When Joss Stone was a cover girl I remember feeling so excited and in the know; I had been listening to her album for months already. ELLEgirl was responsible for much of my fashion education, such as it was, featuring clothes from the likes of Luella and Christopher Kane. I remember Peaches Geldof telling us that you should never, ever tuck in your top (Gen Z-ers, rejoice) and photo spreads of who was sitting front-row at the Topshop Unique show at London Fashion Week. I have a vivid memory of a pair of mint green, metallic biker-style trousers that I would never be able to get my hands on but that I cut out and saved regardless. I’m pretty sure my obsession with the Mulberry Bayswater bag started thanks to reading ELLEgirl. Because every teenage girl needs a massive leather handbag, right?

(Sidebar: I’ve just googled how much you’d have to fork out for a Bayswater nowadays and let me tell you it is no longer £700…)

This aspirational, fashion-focused style gave ELLEgirl a more serious, editorial feel next to some of the other teen magazines I had access to. As well as style features, there were long-form interviews and personal pieces. Alongside a six-page spread about the ‘sailor girl’ trend (Tatty Devine anchor necklace anyone?), you could expect to read an article about drug addiction or coming to the UK as a refugee. ELLEgirl was telling its readers that you could be socially engaged and smart and still be interested in fashion and celebrities. Not every story had to be about boys and dating. Don’t get me wrong, those features were still prevalent but ELLEgirl didn’t give me that never-been-kissed anxiety that lots of other magazines did. The ‘Dare to be different’ mantra maybe slides into ‘I’m not like other girls’ territory, but there was a sense that sex and relationships were just part of the bigger picture of what it meant to be a teenage girl, rather than the whole.

Reading ELLEgirl gave me a glimpse of what I hoped Future Me would look like. It was the publication that made me want to work in fashion and helped cradle my aspirations of living and working in London or Paris or New York. In a pre-Pinterest world, I created endless collages of cut-outs from its pages. I spent hours arranging and glueing lookbooks and colour stories from fashion spreads, accented with quotes from interviews and fun typography. It didn’t matter that I didn’t own a Henry Holland slogan t-shirt or had never been to London Fashion Week, the fact that I knew what they were and why they were cool was cultural capital enough. It gave me access to a world I realistically would never be part of, but that I could dare to dream about.

Ultimately, this unattainability made me fall out of love with fashion magazines. In my late teens, I graduated to ELLE and Vogue, where enjoying the fantasy and creativity of the editorial spreads only took me so far. Vogue in particular was a window into a world of untold wealth and class (un)consciousness that you don’t quite comprehend when you’re 14. By the time I was in my twenties and living in a capital city on £14,000 a year, the idea that I would spend even a small portion of that on a magazine that was flogging me a lifestyle of second homes in the south of France and shoes that cost more than my rent was ridiculous. This was also the early days of blogging when certified ‘normal’ people were posting outfit photos and writing on the internet in a way that felt way more real than what magazines were doing.

While Vogue mostly still leaves me cold, ELLEgirl retains a place in my heart. I try to avoid nostalgia as a rule but ELLEgirl reminds me of a time when I felt much freer, more creative and more hopeful. If I bring even a smidge of critical thinking into play, I also know that it was as guilty as any other magazine of the time for its lack of racial, class and body diversity. Now I know that only a select few among its readers were likely to get their parents to actually buy them a Bayswater for Christmas. But for a 14-year-old with lofty ideals and a creative spirit, it was the gateway to the shimmering, glamorous life I craved.

Sometimes I feel sad about not being able to give that younger version of me the life that she wanted. But then I remember that owning a designer handbag is, in fact, not normal and that I don’t work in an industry where I have to worry about what I’m wearing to Fashion Week. We’ve also had to reckon with nearly two decades-worth of economic and governmental mess, which has put a damper on much more than my dreams of living in Paris. What I want to recapture most is the sense of optimism and enthusiasm I had at 14, but that feels much harder to muster now.

This lack of enthusiasm also stems from the broader homogenisation of media aimed at women. Everything is, quite literally, beige. ‘Elevated basics’ reign supreme. The churn of consumption is completely out of hand. We’re kidding ourselves if we think that brands and media outlets are doing anything meaningful to move the dial away from thinness and whiteness as being the most desirable ways to be. Social media is no longer social; it’s a sales floor. The list of creators whose content doesn’t make me feel inadequate or in a constant state of lack is small - and growing smaller. Where can you find the media that does make you feel good?

It’s not perfect, but I think the closest thing I’ve found is right here, on Substack. This platform feels like having a whole range of magazines at my fingertips. Many of my favourite writers are here, covering everything from fashion and style to mental health to careers creativity to travel. It may not be consolidated into one monthly volume, but it satisfies that craving for smart, creative and opinionated content.

So maybe I don’t want ELLEgirl 2.0. The 14-year-old me didn’t know any better and had a lovely time because of it. What I want now is a media space that speaks to the version of me that exists in 2024. The version of me that is tired of the endless identical #ads and clickbait-y articles. The version of me that no longer lusts after metallic green trousers but still enjoys fashion and style, who wants to share brilliant essays and beautiful photography with her friends. I want something that’s not purely trend-led and that has a solid identity. I want long-form media content with some intellectual bite. I want to be impressed, enchanted, delighted! I want to be excited again. Is that really too much to ask?

So now I’ve spent a few paragraphs complaining about the dearth of good fashion, style and lifestyle content, here are some writers, creators and brands that I do feel excited by!

• I found Alison Hope Murray on Instagram thanks to her Clutter to Capsule series, where she did a serious edit of her colourful, print-forward wardrobe. She is a Creative Director with a passion for excellent design and craftsmanship whose mission is educating you so you can wear more and buy less. She’s also on Substack and TikTok.

• One of my favourite writers on Substack is journalist and author Otegha Uwagba. I first discovered Otegha via Women Who, a creative careers community for women with a brilliant podcast. She writes about her love of clothes in her newsletter Add To Wishlist which is the ideal blend of fantasy shopping list and cultural critique. I love it.

• Charlotte Jacklin is a long-time follow for me on Instagram. Her style is much more whimsical than mine, but I really enjoy watching her videos and, in the old days, reading her blog. She also used to publish indie magazine Betty and her linen/tableware cupboard is the absolute dream.

• As well as Substack, I reckon podcasts are mostly where I get my creative and cultural media fix these days. A few of my most listened-to right now are:

  • Life & Art from FT Weekend, covering the week’s top cultural stories in bite-sized episodes.

  • Style-ish, an Australian podcast for all things fashion, beauty and business that I recently discovered through Alison Hope Murray.

  • The Business of Fashion podcast for longer interviews and deep-dives into fashion and culture.

• I am very limited in who I follow on TikTok, but I discovered Lady Diana May when she was living for a short stint in London and kept appearing on my FYP. I would describe her style as laid-back luxe and her chatty, short vlog-style content is my kind of scroll fodder i.e. doesn’t leave you feeling crap about yourself.

• Alexandra Stedman is, in my eyes, the queen of practical but fun fashion. Of everyone on this list, she is the creator who appears most on my Pinterest boards and whose styling ideas I actually find useful for everyday wear. She also has excellent specs. Follow her Instagram and Substack for everything from combatting food-waste to home DIYs and where to find the best striped t-shirts.

• Another TikTok discovery for me is Fashivly, a personal styling platform who offer digital personal shopping and style guides. Their TikTok is a goldmine of original styling content that puts individuality and having fun with clothes front and centre. Ever wondered what a caramel latte would dress like or what your favourite 2000s rom-com heroine would wear now? Fashivly has you covered.

If there are writers/creators/platforms that you think I should be paying attention to, then please let me know!