So here I am, finally working at a real fashion magazine! It’s always been one of my dreams to become a fashion journalist; it’s right up there on my list of childhood aspirations, just below sorceress and rock star. Even so, while I know WORN isn’t your typical fashion publication, I was, at first, a little confused. How come no one has asked me to get them a latte yet? Why has no one thrown a coat on my desk? Where’s my trip to Paris? And why, may I ask, have I already gone into my third month of work without an obligatory song and dance number?

Then I remembered: like many of my childhood dreams, my ideas of what it’s like to work at a fashion magazine are based solely and solidly on what may not be the most realistic of representations. Mainly, movies.

Specifically, there are two films which, while separated by decades, present pretty much the same accepted ideas about the cut-throat world of fashion magazine employment, and which have formed my fashion fantasies: The Devil Wears Prada, and its eerily similar predecessor, Funny Face.

Both films start with the same premise: a young, bookish brunette falls into a hard-to-get gig at a fashion magazine by complete accident. She meets a demanding, influential fashion editor, who insists on a makeover. The bookish brunette resists but is eventually swayed by the glamour of the fashion industry, visits Paris, falls in love, and tries to come to terms with her new identity. This is standard stuff!

Funny Face was made in 1957, with Audrey Hepburn playing Jo, the bookish brunette who’s swept up into modeling by powerful and cranky Maggie Prescott (Kay Thompson). In the fashion offices of “Quality” magazine, Maggie’s flock of fashion followers jump at her proclamation that pink will be the next big thing. They don’t hesitate to do a song and dance about it, each clad in a different pink suit. Later, Maggie gives advice to Jo about how to give a good press conference, with all the necessary doo-eee-ooohs included. Jo’s big conflict is reconciling her love of empathetic philosophy with her new love of running down big marble staircases in fancy dresses for her love interest and photographer played by Fred Astaire. In the end, she chooses fashion.

In the Devil Wears Prada, the bookish brunette is of course Andy (Anne Hathaway), whose naïveté is abused by the Anna Wintour stand-in Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep). Although there’s technically no song and dance, Miranda’s office bends to her whims in the same manner. Andy gets sucked in not only with the extreme demands of the job, but with free makeovers and wardrobe perks.

So what about me? I’m relatively bookish, brunette, and here I am at a fashion magazine! But so far, my editor hasn’t asked me to get her any rare manuscripts, no one’s done any obligatory dancing (yet), and I haven’t had a makeover foisted upon me. Because of WORN’s creative content, as I’m sure you know, I get to stay in love with philosophy, and still feel the fashion-thrill equivalent of fancy-dress staircase descents. I can’t say I’m not a little relieved about these things, in what might be the first instance where I’m happier movies have turned out to be untrue.

I mean, I’m still going to Paris. Right?

-Alexandra

I think if I tabulated all of the time and money I’ve spent on hair dyes, hair straighteners, curlers, relaxing perms, trips to the hair dresser to have my hair thinned, and all of those other devices that exist to make your hair everything other than what it is, I’d probably have enough for a small down payment on a house. Before ceramic hair straighteners I had that crazy Conair machine with the steam mechanism attached… and before that I got my Mom to straighten my frizz with an iron and a towel.

Well, a couple of years ago I decided it was time for a frizzy-haired girl like me to find some relevant hair inspiration and nip the daily hair envy I felt towards non-frizzies in the bud! And now it seems that the messier my curls are, the more I like them, which has made my life that much easier with the sticky, humid summer we’ve had in Montreal!

Now more than ever it feels like the only thing I’m drawn to are big messy heads of hair, sort of like the ones most of the women have in old silent films. I got a collection of D.W. Griffith shorts in the mail not too long ago and sort of swooned when I saw Lilian Gish looking all frazzled and dishevelled in The Mothering Heart. It sort of made the whole thing that much more whimsical and fairy tale-like to me. I think it’s perfectly sweet and romantic the way they decorate their messy dos with little flowers, big bows and lots and lots of braids. It just seems better to me that they let their hair do what it wants to do, without trying to control it and make it into something it’s not.

I suffered a serious case of hair envy for years and years when I first got into old films and was obsessed with Audrey Hepburn and Ava Gardner. I’d flip through my favourite fashion magazines and wish I had the patience to do pretty hair styles like the girls in the editorials. And I think when I first saw a picture of Erin Fetherston I may have died of jealousy a little bit on the inside, because no matter how many times I passed my ceramic iron over my hair, it just wouldn’t look that smooth and silky and perfect! It was so comforting to me when I discovered magazines like Worn with all of its fairy tale prettiness and girls who don’t try so hard!

I suppose most of my inspirations tend to come from some old timey thing. I think I just sort of feel funny in modern looks, and most of the more modern fashion magazines show looks that are just too edgy for me to pull off, so I’ve learned to turn mostly to the more romantic fashions of past decades. And really is there anything more romantic than the grainy, black and white silent films with girls dressed in long white dresses skipping around to cheesy little silent film music with their long frizzy hair all wrapped in ribbons?

I’ll admit that this hair inspiration applies mostly to other “frizzies” like myself, who are fed up of putting hours of effort into making their hair into something it isn’t. The last time I needed hair inspiration I ended up turning to the Gibson Girl images from old Coca Cola ads and photographs of ladies from the Edwardian era who would throw all of their long hair into a big pile on top of their heads. I definitely seek out the looks that require the least amount of effort and maintenance. That being said, I really do think that these silent film ladies had a good thing going with their long messy fairy hair, and I for one plan on looking to them for inspiration when I want to turn my bad hair day into something perfectly pretty and romantic!

-Meaghan Kelly