The thing about girly mags...

The last few months of vacation after bschool has meant that I have all the time in the world for anything at all. My mailbox doesn't have more than 2 mails a day, I go to sleep at a sane hour every night and I haven't had Maggi in the last 3 months - all irrefutable signs that I am a student no more. 

So keeping with the general vella atmosphere, I enrolled in the local library and read a lot of stuff, both good and bad. And I think I might have just stumbled upon what it takes to have a successful girly mag (no, seriously). Confessions first, I have read editions of the Femina, Vogue, Cosmo, Women's Era etc...so I kinda know what I am talking about, ok? So, in my own humble opinion, this is the dummy's guide to designing a chick mag:

1. The cover page is critical. It is important to sprinkle all the right words, exclamation marks, colours on the cover. Phrases like 'Losing X pounds in N days' (see, u already want to read it :P), 'spice up ur wardrobe/looks/sex life', 'the real woman' (dunno why that is always in singular), 'hot heels/bags/belts featured' should be in bold and in bright colours.

2. The editor's note (in today's trying times) will talk about the recession, job losses, inflation and other depressing things. But hey, who said fashion has to be expensive? Somehow, recessionista, lipstick effect and other high fangled terms would be mentioned which will all neatly tie up with some survey that the mag has conducted. And finally would come the one sure-shot way to ride over this recession, SPLURGE!! (no, I kid u not....that is an advice that many mag editors are actually dishing out in these jobless days :O)

3. There can be a spread of about 5-6 pages keeping with the whole recessionista theme....advice wil be to pick classy, elegant pieces, the photos will be anything but :| Btw, the brands featured should be incredibly inexpensive and totally unaffordable to 99.99% of the reading public

4. There will always be one article which will say in huge letters, 'Break the rules!' in the latter part of the issue. I don't think it matters much if the very rules u are trying to break here are the exact ones that were detailed in page 10.

5. There will be a profile of the model featured on the cover page. If she is a celeb kid, she can talk about being her own person (yeah, right!). If she is a model doing shows in Paris, then better get her to talk about her love for travelling, mostly Thailand. There should be one question about the most expensive brand in her wardrobe. Which will be followed by what is the most overhyped thing in fashion, for which she will promptly say 'brands'!

6. There will be one, exactly one profile of a woman who is smart, beautiful and doesn't have anything to do with movies or fashion. She will mostly probably be a photographer, social entrepreneur or a social worker. She is of course the real woman mentioned on the cover page.

7. There has be a food column of course. If it is a firang mag, the ingredients featured should not be available/difficult to find in India accompanied by a headline which says Food porn or something similar. A Padmalakshmi snap will be well appreciated at this point (;)). If it's a desi mag that we are aiming for, this recipe section will go on and on and on....keep flipping til the mag is over. 

8. The stereotypes the mags perpetrate is mindblowing...u can choose between a smoking hot, polygamous working woman or a docile, homemaker, ugly hassled mother of two. Yeah, there is also the awkward college kid who can be given a makeover and her fashion style declared to be fun and flirty/sweet and sexy/gothic chic etc (this, we can keep shuffling based on the sponsors :P)

9. The section on celebrities will thrash Kareena Kapoor for her size zero and talk about how men like women to be full bodied/curvy etc. This is also an excuse for putting up a big poster size pic of the celeb in question. There will be an article in the health section, which will outline the exact steps Kareena undertook to attain the above mentioned size zero!!

10. Other important news, like the US presidential election or the Indian elections can be covered in a fleeting mention. Like when describing Mrs. Obama's style or Priyanka Gandhi's, the journalist can also mention that their parties have won, thanks in no small measure to the style statement of these women! 

P.S.: One would wonder why women read this trash religiously month after month. I don't have a personal theory on this.