Have you ever flipped through a magazine and felt like they were missing your perspective on something? One girl, Ashley Falcon, felt like she and other plus-size women weren’t getting enough advice and support from fashion magazines. Rather than just complain, Ashley got going - she joined Marie Claire magazine as an intern, and soon she was penning her very own column for the publication. How did she make the leap from unpaid intern to full-time writer? One day, Ashley was sharing a cab with a Marie Claire editor. She mentioned that she had to work much harder than her more slender coworkers to find cute, appropriate work attire. The editor thought Ashley made a great point, and before long she was winning a huge following with her honest yet funny takes on plus-size shopping. The column, “Big Girl in a Skinny World,” is a hit.
Her first column addressed the gruelling quest for the perfect pair of jeans. She included three of her favourites that work for up to a size 24. That’s probably the first time those digits have appeared on one of the magazine’s fashion spreads unless it mentioned the model’s age.
The article is surprisingly and admirably frank. Ashley doesn’t just claim to be an expert, she offers her testimonial as an unashamed size 18: “I go through at least a few pairs of jeans every year, routinely wearing holes in the area where my thighs rub together.”
Ashley wrote that “It’s not easy being chic, but it’s an epic struggle when you’re a big girl.”
Oh, fashion interns. Not only does wanting to break into such a competitive industry usually mean you have to accept several unpaid or low-paid gigs in order to build up your resume, one fashion website is now pushing their free help even further. Fashionista.com, who (like many other fashion and beauty companies) relies on unpaid interns to help them cover the bases during Fashion Week, has asked their staff to go above and beyond the normal call of duty. Check out this section from a recent intern job ad they posted:
“We’ll need you at least two days a week until Fashion Week starts February 9th, during which we’ll need you more. How much more depends on your schedule, but you should be eager to skip class in favor of MILK. Our intern hours are officially 11 to 4, but again, once the week starts there’s no on/off.”
You heard that right, everybody: your unpaid job is WAY more important than your education! School is for losers! I’ll see you guys at fashion week.
Internships at fashion magazines are among the most competitive and sought-after internships in the world. However, one fashion intern might be in trouble after this story made rounds online:
Outrage at Grazia magazine after an intern sent out regularly to buy skinny lattes for the beauty desk announced at the end of her stint on the mag that she had in fact been buying them all full-fat ones. [Gawker via Media Monkey]
Or maybe she’s trying to subvert the paradigm and defeat the system from within? That would actually be awesome. If that’s true, she can be my intern anytime she wants.
Conan O’Brien was interviewed on his very own episode of Inside the Actor’s Studio, even though he isn’t an actor. One thing I really liked was that he talked about some non-showbiz stuff that he did, including a brief stint as a Capitol Hill intern. Conan worked for a short time as an intern to his district’s congressional representative, but his main memory of the experience was “making lots of copies.” He also cops to having had a bit of an entitlement problem, admitting he didn’t want to work his way up through the ranks but rather skip straight to the top. Oh, Conan, you adorable former “Simpsons”-episode writer, you. Why people preferred watching Jay Leno to this man is an absolute mystery to me.
I’ve always wondered what athletes do during their off-seasons. Do they play sports every day just to stay in shape? Do they hang out with their families? Take trips? Buy expensive things? Well, one athlete does something very unusual during his time away from the sport - Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Ross Ohlendorf spends his down time working as an intern for the US Department of Agriculture. And he doesn’t even get paid. Man, I feel like a total slacker right now compared to this guy, it’s not even funny.
Ohlendorf will be spending 20 hours a week this winter studying cattle diseases and their migration patterns. He works in a small room that he shares with another intern. “This one’s been, I’d say, the most exciting off-season I’ve had,” he said in an ABC News interview.
Bethany Cosentino loves music. Last year, she worked as an intern for cool music magazine Fader. Now, she’s the lead singer for up-and-coming band Best Coast and getting love from - who else?- her former employer:
She is now nearing full-on diva status with many, many jams under her belt and many more on the way. We don’t even remember that one time she FUCKED UP OUR COFFEE ORDER. JK we don’t send interns to get coffee, it’s the only time we get outside. But for real, if we had known Bethany, and her bandmate Bobb Bruno, were capable of music this good, we would’ve fired her instantly. “The people need to hear this!” we would’ve said as we pushed her out the front door. But we didn’t so we just enjoyed her non-musical presence for the short time she was here. And now we enjoy her presence wherever we can find it.
You can download a new Best Coast single at Fader or check out one of their videos after the jump.
In this economy, it’s more and more common for people to take on second jobs or side gigs in order to make ends meet. One such man, Niclas Nilsson of Sweden, spent his days working at a personal care staffing agency. However, the schedule was somewhat erratic, and while Niclas loved his job he needed some additional income. He found an internship at a porn store called Erotic Video, which purports to have “northern Sweden’s largest selection of erotic films and sex toys.” Though Niclas only worked behind the counter and didn’t engage in any illicit activities, when word of his side gig got out he was let go from his first job.
Nilsson doesn’t see the problem with splitting his time between caring for the elderly and collecting cash from people paying for pornography.
“There’s nothing inappropriate about it as long as I keep the two separate. It was just something on the side, and as long as I was doing my other job well, I don’t think it should matter what I do in my personal time,” he said.
The father of three said he considers his boss’s handling of the matter “very unprofessional.”
Do you agree with Niclas, or do you think his boss was in the right?
This week, magazine publishing empire Conde Nast (home to Vogue and Vanity Fair, among others) announced that it would be permanently shuttering several of its titles. Among the fallen was beloved food magazine Gourmet. All of the magazine’s employees were laid off, including longtime editor and noted foodie Ruth Reichl. However, most people don’t think about the effect that company closings have on the employees at the bottom rung of the totem pole. Kate Schmier, a former Gourmet intern, writes in today’s Huffington Post about what the magazine, and her experience there, meant to her:
For the first time, I gained a sense of the editorial process–from the ideas stage to the final product readers buy on the stands. I saw the long hours and relentless cycle of deadlines–but I also felt the team’s energy and passion for their work.
As an aspiring writer, it was a moment of confirmation: This was what I wanted to do and where I belonged. By end of the summer, I told my parents that I was packing my bags and heading to New York the minute I graduated.
Looking for a place to live is a tedious process - hours of combing through Craigslist just to try and find a place you can afford that’s not in the worst possible neighborhood or with a roommate who collects those weird cat clocks. Well, one guy decided to make his ad stand out and advertise for himself in the process. Trace Lenhoff, the new intern on Bravo’s house-flipping show Flipping Out, is looking for a roommate to share his Hollywood penthouse with. Though he doesn’t mention his name in the ad, he includes a photo of himself and links to his Facebook page, which has references to the show. You can see the ad here, should you be interested in paying $1,100 a month and are a nonsmoker.
Here’s Trace in all his fearing-the-Jeff-Lewis glory:
Late night talk show host Jimmy Fallon needs an intern. But instead of sifting through boring applications and reading countless resumes, he’s decided to make the search a little more interesting. Potential interns have to submit a video of them saying nothing but “Oh, hello. I didn’t see you there.” Watch as some of the applicants get super creative with the contest:
This week, magazine publishing empire Conde Nast (home to