Fibro Q&A: So you want to be a fashion/beauty writer?

Paula Joye has dedicated the last 20 years of her life to beauty, fashion and style. When I met her in the early days of my fulltime features-writing career, she was the deputy editor of CLEO, a gorgeous (still is, see left), bubbly blonde with endless reserves of encouragement (for people like me) and unlimited potential (for her). She pretty much fulfilled all that potential in magazines, as editor of CLEO, Shop Til You Drop and Madison - and editor-in-chief of all three - and has now moved on to seeing where it will take her online (I'm thinking far) with Life.Styled., which she describes as a 'depot for beautiful things'.

With a solid-gold background in beauty and fashion editing in her portfolio, I could think of no better person to ask about beauty and fashion writing. It's a very specific niche in the publishing world (both print and online) and it calls for a particular set of skills. Not least of which is being able to write down, off the top of your head, at least a dozen different alternatives for each of these words: hair, skin, eyes, fragrance. Trust me, it's not as easy as it looks...

What are the three main skills you need to be a good fashion or beauty writer?
PJ: "1. You must love it, otherwise it will melt your brain. The way to find true satisfaction when specialising in any subject is passion - if you kinda like shoes or sorta think mascara is awesome, it's never going to be for you.

"2. Have an opinion. This separates the wheat from the chaff. The best beauty and fashion writers have a point of view that is engaging, 360  and often humorous or self-deprecating. It's not rocket science and shouldn't be written as such.

"3. Luck. Right place. Right time."

I think it's an area of writing that people think is easy - but anyone who's tried to write a hair story and come up with 33 different ways to say 'hair' (without repeating yourself) knows differently. What are the keys to getting it right?
PJ: "Finding 33 different words for hair! Creativity is key and the big one is to avoid cliches. It is an area riddled with them - find a new angle, throw the net wider, and don't say stuff like 'sun, sand and salt water can wreak havoc on your locks'. Just don't."

Of course, there's more to it than just the writing. Fashion and beauty editors spend a lot of time away from their desks, viewing collections, attending product launches, etc. Is relationship-building a vital tool in the fashion or beauty writer's arsenal?
PJ: "One hundred per cent. It's your mainline to experts, new information, inspiration - it's the front line. The industry is about contacts and runs on the board - a big part of that is the network you create."

How do I break into this area if it's something I'm passionate about?
PJ: "You can do it. Make sure you really want it (because it's hard) and then dig your heels in. Work experience is essential. Try to get an internship within a magazine, newspaper or television fashion or beauty department. Start a blog or website as an outlet for your writing - and to become your CV."

Would you agree then that any potential fashion/beauty writer/editor needs a blog? What do you think are the key ingredients of a standout fashion/beauty blog?
PJ: "You should only create a blog if you're passionate about it - no matter what the subject matter. Yes, it's a great way to express your creative point of view and self-publish, but it's also a beast that needs to be fed. Daily.

"Find your sticky point - and for everyone that will be different. The key to success is recognising the 'thing' that people are visiting your blog for, and capitalising on it.

"A wise editor once said (and man, it's true), 'Should we give the readers more of what they want? Or less?'

"It's actually that simple."

Visit Paula at lifestyled.com.au for everything you ever wanted to know about fashion, beauty, home, heart... and fun.

The letter of the day: V

Today I did something I haven’t done in a very long time. And, no, it wasn’t housework (though this could have been a contender). It wasn’t even writing fiction – though it should have been. No, this was all together more outrageous.

I read Vogue Australia.

Once upon a time, I read Vogue for a living. As Chief Sub, it was my job to read every word, every month, three or four times. To caption each picture, from the outside in, top to bottom. To know that Cameron Diaz was a girl (it was early in her career), that Lycra needed a TM symbol, that Collette Dinnigan was a 2-Ls, 2-Ts, 3-Ns kind of girl.

Those who know me well still wonder aloud how I ever found myself at Vogue. I wonder it myself. For a person whose sense of fashion stretches to basics and not much else, it was an education. Getting dressed every day was, I confess, a chore. Until I realised that everyone in the place had their own signature style. American Prep, Upmarket Goth, Chanel, 1960s Racer Girl, et al. Mine would be Basic. I took it, I owned it, I rocked it as best I could – not easy when you’re 25 with no cash and you’re getting dressed hungover most mornings.

I loved working at Vogue. We worked long hours but it was a lot of fun. How could it be anything else?

My focus was all on the words. The Fashion Office was a hallowed hall of gorgeousness, where I’d venture only occasionally to find someone to please give me caption information for the 10-page shoot due to go to press that night. It takes only five minutes on a magazine like that for some of the ‘glamour’ of working in fashion to fall away. Fashion assistants put in longer hours than CEOs and get out of bed for a lot less than $10,000 a day.

That said, working at Vogue puts you in a strange headspace. You think nothing of spending $500 on a pair of shoes when you earn half of that each week. You find yourself talking in the singular – The Pant, The Shoe, The Eye. The only place you really run into problems with that kind of thing is when you come to The Jean. It just doesn’t work. Jeans work only in pairs.

Flicking through today, I notice that some things have changed. Even shoes comes in pairs now. But much hasn’t. It’s still a magazine full of improbable clothes (of incredible expense) modelled by amazing looking women. The ‘real-life’ pages still feature tousled, honey-skinned beauties with immaculate pedigrees who do fabulous things and buy lots of shoes. Between lavish spreads of full-page photographs are type-heavy pages of well-written features, as well as those itsy-bitsy pages so beloved of designers the world over.

The Builder bought me the Vogue to take my mind off last Friday. It worked. For pure escapism, you can’t beat it. As a memory trip, it brought a smile to my face. And I’m left with a genuine desire to buy something that is not a black, long-sleeved T-shirt.

A Women's Conference: boots and all.

Today I found myself at the Fibrotown Women’s Conference. The location: the auditorium of one of the area’s many Bowling Clubs, complete with requisite swirly-patterned, muck-hiding carpet. The theme: Inspired. The point: well, as I sat there this morning, drinking my instant coffee, I wasn’t entirely sure.

A friend had invited me to along and I’d accepted with gusto. Six hours with grown women, drinking coffee, eating cake? What’s not to love? Then my mum asked me this morning what exactly it was all about. I couldn’t answer.

“It’s a Women’s Conference,” I said, admiring my reflection in my brand-new, shiny black knee-length boots. I mention these because I am so damned pleased with their purchase. It’s rare for me to have a shoe love-in, but these are a dark, dangerous affair. They are, it must be said, a whisker too elongated through the toe. Which is why they were on sale – big sale, huge sale, the kind of sale that makes you feel a million bucks every time you wear them because you know what a bargain they were. The sales assistant in Fibrotown’s one – I repeat, one – shoe store (which is fortunately a good one) told me blithely that they’d marked them down because they were ‘last season’.

I took a good look up and down the main street, festooned as it was by Crocs, thongs and runners, and said ‘I’ll take them’. Last season is the height of fashion round these parts.

But I digress.

I was dragged back from the examination of my glorious (cheap) new boots when my Mum continued: “Yes, but what will you do?”

I was stumped. “We’ll, er, confer about stuff, I guess,” I said, slinking out the door before she changed her mind about babysitting.

I went with no expectations – the best way to go to anything – and came home with this report. Firstly, we did confer about ‘stuff’. Women’s stuff. We learned that $2 can buy a birthing kit to be sent overseas to help save the one woman who dies every minute in childbirth. We learned that unimaginable tragedy need not kill us, it may make us stronger. We learned that seaweed can become a passion, that origami can capture a heart (hence the crane pic), that inspiration comes in many guises.

As a roomful of women, we did not hold back. We cried. We laughed. One of us even sang – a heartfelt rendition of Happy Birthday to win a prize.

Being a roomful of women, we also queued. For entry, for lunch but, mostly, for loos. I ran into my neighbour, a beautiful young woman who seems to spend her life on a horse. I ran into one of the mums from school. I ran into R, promoting her PASH business. My hairdresser was there. The local paper was there. The elegant women representing Dairy Farming were there.

That was the point. An excuse to get together, to network, to learn. To inspire and to be inspired.

I left with a smile. In my new boots. Which I’d like to point out were supremely comfortable over the course of a long day. In the way that only a true bargain can be.

{image: Woodward + Rick, via TheKnot.com}