Rachel Cooke, I have a huge crush on you at the moment.
Why?
Because your interview with Peaces Geldof was pretty much the best thing I've read in a seriously long time. For those of you who have yet to read Cooke's fantastic interview with Peaches, please stop what you're doing, go and read it, and then come back here and tell me what you think.
Firstly, I, being American, barely knew who the hell Miss Geldof was when I first came over to London. Frankly, I still don't know who the hell she is, but I know that whatever she does, whether it's "DJing" or "writing a column for Nylon" or "modeling" - it's irritating as shit.
Rachel Cooke seems to feel the exact same way, which is made crystal clear in her description of her encounter with Peaches.
Awesome line #1:
Oh, Peaches. (Or to use her full name: Oh, Peaches Honeyblossom Michelle Charlotte Angel Vanessa.) There's just no telling her, is there?
Awesome line #2:
We could probably go on like this all day. But Peaches has finished her
pasta now, and I'm finding it increasingly hard to keep a smile on my
staid, feminist face.
Awesome line #3:
Silly me. It seems that I am the
one who is going to get the career advice. To sum up: the work that I do is pretty rubbish. Most interviews are
just so... boring. Then again, I mustn't feel too bad. It could be
worse. I could be on a tabloid.
And to sum this up, Rachel Cooke is awesome.
However, aside from Cooke's awesomeness, I discovered something about Peaches I hadn't known before. She's the editor of her very own magazine, Disappear Here. And, alarmingly, Peaches and I would appear to get on really well. I mean, she talks about her magazine exactly the same way I talk about BitchBuzz.
I feel hugely patronised by women's
magazines. Like Company and Marie Claire and Cosmopolitan especially. I
don't wanna know about sex tips, I don't wanna know about make-up, I
don't wanna read patronising interviews...I just hate it. They think all we wanna know about is babies, or
high-street fashion. But that's so old-fashioned. I wanna read, like,
interesting interviews!
Right on Peaches! So, who does she go and interview for the first (free!) issue?
Vivienne Westwood.
You know, because Marie Claire would never interview her or anything.
But Peaches, I can totally understand why a gal like you would feel uber patronized by women's magazines. Like, you're totes right. We do want interesting interviews and not all of us care about high-street fashion. (Even though Peaches's clothing line, PPQ, is sort of sold at My Wardrobe and ASOS - which are all about the high-street fashion.)
But, dear Peaches, if you really gave a shit about reaching out to "real" women and want your magazine to "be huge", putting out 45,000 copies in only your "favourite boutiques and clubs, guerrilla style" is pretty much the most patronizing way I've ever heard of anybody promoting a magazine.
The first issue of Disappear Here is free and Peaches says she doesn't care about sales or how exactly they'll make money. Peaches says she just wants to speak to that huge gap in the market for people who, from the sounds of it, are the same people who want to read BitchBuzz.
But, as Cooke puts it, that's only "assuming you're cool enough to know where to find it."
Image via Wikepedia Commons via Ram-Man