Glossed Over

The reality TV reincarnation of Jane Pratt • Former Jane/Sassy demigod Jane Pratt and annoyingly mustachioed stylist Philip Bloch have teamed up for a VH1 reality show that puts “unfashionable women” at the helm of a fashion magazine, Page Six reports today.  The pilot, which has already been shot, is called American Ugly.  (Get it?  It’s America’s Next Top Model meets Ugly Betty! Sigh.)  A show insider says the contestants “are just the saddest bunch.  These people not only needed fashion tips, they needed an entire mental makeover.  Not one could possibly run a magazine.  They were delusional.”  No matter—we’ll watch anyway!

The Week: Vogue Goes Bold, Features Actual Models

• First, a look at next month’s Vogue and W covers.  Shocker!  Those are models, not movie stars, on the cover of Vogue.  Though if there absolutely must be a celeb on the cover, it’s hard to argue with America Ferrera.

• Jane’s newsstand sales may be flagging, but that hasn’t stopped the development of a TV show.

• Ooh, juicy.  Editors from Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, and Bazaar live it up in New Orleans, while low-level staffers at the magazines have their raises delayed.  We expect this incident to spawn at least one more thinly veiled novel about a magazine assistant.

• Is Good Housekeeping going hip?  As part of a makeover, the magazine hires editors from Jane and Lucky.

• Is Ashlee Simpson the face of June’s Cosmopolitan?  If so, why?

• And Jane Pratt blah blah blah another interview blah blah blah.  Yep, even we’re bored with her by now.

Dear Brandon: A Response to Jane's Editor

Dear Brandon,

Remember your first “Editor’s Letter”?  Remember how instantly enamored we were and how hopeful we were that you could salvage a magazine we once adored for its irreverent point-of-view, just because you wrote a succinct and impersonal message and didn’t act falsely chummy, Jane Pratt-style, and ask us to vote on whether you should get highlights?

Well, things have changed, and it’s not us—it’s you.  Let’s talk about your April message.

Before you get all up in arms about the changes you’re gonna see in this issue, let me first say that it’s all your fault.

Changes?  Based on reader suggestions?  Now you’re just teasing us, Brandon.

If you weren’t so forward, smart and insightful…

Uh oh. Resorting to flattery already?   That doesn’t bode well.

…about telling me what kind of magazine you want to read, I wouldn’t have tweaked a thing.

Well, there’s a tacit admission that she’s out of touch and knows it.  She wouldn’t have made any changes?  If everything at Jane was copacetic, then why was she even hired?  ’Fess up already, Brandon—after all, Jane Pratt barely manages to flip through new issues.

By the way, when you send me an e-mail, it goes straight to my Treo and not to some IT guy.

Which, you know, is the accepted way that email works.  But thanks for clarifying that for us!

So the editors here and I can now say beyond any doubt that you want us to feature fewer Hollywood bimbos…

…which is why Avril Lavigne is on the cover, since she’s a Canadian bimbo and therefore completely different.

You also love book reviews—sorry I cut down on them for a while…

Remember when you said your readers were “smart”?  Do you know a single smart woman who exclusively reads Jane?  Yeah, nor do we.

…and you’ll most likely shoot us if we ever try to give you pandering sex advice or diet info…

But pandering career advice and a pandering ad campaign are absolutely okay!

We’re just trying to get closer to what I think we all want Jane to be: a mirror for a culture of women who are opinionated, funny and smart, and who don’t suffer bullshit.

Okay, she’s right on this one minute detail.  That’s what we want  Jane (and, if we’re truthful, every magazine) to be.  Unfortunately, the reality is nowhere near that goal, as is painfully evident in the very next sentence:

My favorite item this month is the women at a dog park in Silver Lake, L.A.:  We asked them who their dogs would be if they were famous, and their answers were hilarious—we couldn’t have written them better.

Funny, she said she wanted to reflect “opinionated” women, so naturally we thought  Jane would seek out opinions on subjects that, oh, actually matter.  Not that asking women to conflate a dog’s personality with that of a celeb isn’t (sort of, perhaps, maybe if you’re in the right mood) funny. But it’s a terrible trifle to trot out as an example of the “culture of women” the magazine claims to promote.  Apparently modern women are defined not by their own personalities, but by the traits they conjure for their dogs.

As ever, e-mail me…

Check your Treo, Brandon.

Love,

Glossed Over

The Week: Like Jane Pratt Needs More Attention Right Now

• In an attempt to counter anything they’ve published that might make you think they aren’t proponents of feminism, Elle hosted a panel discussion about women.

• Jane Pratt announced that, back when she was still relevant, she had an affair with Drew Barrymore, and said we can “speculate if [we] want” about a rumored magazine collaboration with Gwen Stefani.  Which means they’re launching a new mag, obviously.   

• Speaking of Jane Pratt being relevant, Mediabistro interviewed the authors of the upcoming book about Sassy called How Sassy Changed My Life: A Love Letter To The Greatest Teen Magazine Of All Time.

• Radar weighs in on Vogue’s shape issue (sorry, we couldn’t resist the pun), while Counterbalance opines about the April issue’s book reviews.

• And a Glamour editor is grooming the next generation of “beauty gurus.” Oh, good, we can’t think of a better role model for today’s girls than one who introduces them to nail polish. [via Gawker]

The Week: Simple-Minded Simple Life Stars Land Bazaar Cover

• First, a bit of Glossed Over news.  We’d love to hear more like this.  Got dirt?  Email us. Also, we’ve added Twitter to our front page for quick updates.

•  Hankering for more thinly veiled, poorly written “fiction” about a spunky editor being deposed from her eponymous magazine?  Gawker’s got another installment.  Or hear the actual story from Jane Pratt next Friday.

•  Anna Wintour hates the word “blog” and has ordered her staff to come up with a replacement immediately. 

•  W, Glamour, and Vogue were nominated for National Magazine Awards.  We aren’t sure why either.

•  And in case you needed another reason not to read Bazaar, the June cover will feature Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie.  Pass!

The Week: Now Officially Sick of Jennifer Hudson

•  Marie Claire staffers are reportedly fleeing the magazine.  What, are they not getting enough screen time in “The Masthead with Marie Claire”?

•  Elle Executive Editor Alex Postman tells Mediabistro that, when interviewing candidates for a job, she asks about their reading habits.  Good news, job applicants: If you’ve managed to read every word on the magazine’s cover, you’re hired.  (And we promise to never trot out that joke again!)

•  Catfight!  Jennifer Hudson and André Leon Talley are still arguing over that ugly bolero.

•  And these excerpts from former Jane staffer Karen Cohen Yampolsky’s “novel” about Jane Pratt reveal the inner machinations of the magazine industry. Also, they reveal that Yampolsky is an exceedingly bad writer.

Relief: Jane Pratt's Career Crisis Nearly Resolved

Women’s Wear Daily reported last Friday that, contrary to previous reports, Jane Pratt did not leave her magazine voluntarily.

In the eight months since Pratt was forced out of her namesake magazine after endless antics…

We don’t mean to be flippant (well, not overly so), but is this news? If you’re so self-involved as to name something after yourself—like, oh, a building or a child—you’re in it for the long haul. Was Jane Pratt already so exhausted by her revealing monthly notes and “cute” comments scattered throughout the magazine that she had to leave? Of course not. Of course she left involuntarily.

Anyway, since the “antics” that resulted in her departure are unlikely to be revealed for a while yet,  we’re currently more intrigued by reports that Pratt may launch a magazine with popstar-cum-cultural force Gwen Stefani.  Might this be the long-awaited Elizabeth?  The erstwhile No Doubt lead singer may not have any magazine experience, but that doesn’t matter. Clearly, a woman with a music career and a not-unpleasant-but-way-overpriced clothing line needs one more way to promote herself—or, we suspect, Jane.

Brandon Holley: Not So Jane After All

Mark your calendars:  the March edition of Jane goes on sale February 21.  With Kate Beckinsale on the cover, it’s the first totally revamped, Brandon Holley-ized issue.

What kinds of changes are afoot?  Holley told Women’s Wear Daily she plans to expand the magazine’s fashion coverage and redirect the focus of those pages. 

“A twentysomething doesn’t have to feel like a sellout for really wanting the Dior bag.  A Jane girl can wear Marc Jacobs shoes and still be irreverent.”

Does Brandon Holley actually know any women in their twenties (besides, you know, the ones who work at the magazine and steal their designer gear from the fashion closet)?  We think it’s more likely the price tag—not the fear of being branded a sellout—preventing the purchase of Marc Jacobs shoes and Dior bags. 

Jane’s publisher, Carlos Demadrid, made it plain that the changes in the magazine’s aesthetic are not solely artistic choices.  He told the New York Times last week the magazine will now target “millennials,” those consumers born between 1980 and 2000.  Why is this demographic so coveted?

“...they’re big consumers.  They’re the children of baby boomers so they like to buy and they like labels.”

Which, Holley’s ponderings aside, quite handily explains the sudden upscaling of Jane’s fashion coverage.  With the next issue, Jane will be less like Jane Pratt (which, let’s be honest, is not necessarily a bad thing) and much more like every other magazine on the newsstand.

But look on the bright side: we’re certain we’ll still be able to mine the editor’s letters for unintentional comedy.  After all, any woman who tells WWD “Our girl is a lot like her iPod” can’t be entirely without merit.  If you define merit as “taking herself way too seriously and then writing about it in a national magazine,” of course.

Jane Pratt, Ghostwriter

It’s the next Devil Wears Prada--with a twist.  This time, the editor-in-chief is the one to cheer for.

Jane Pratt’s former assistant, Karen Cohen Yampolsky, is shopping a book proposal for a novel called Wunderkind.  In the book, editor Jill White--running a magazine called Jill, natch--does battle with a publisher installed by a nemesis CEO.  We’re sure the similarities between the plot and actual events--Fairchild CEO Mary Berner hired a close friend to oversee Jane--are purely coincidental.

Now who’s going to play Jane Pratt Jill White in the movie?

Career Prospects for the Awkwardly Named

We’re not sure how we missed this in the massive amount of media navel-gazing surrounding Jane Pratt’s departure from her eponymous magazine, but we just read something that makes our skin crawl:

Also, Pratt told Mediaweek she may be interested at some point in reviving the concept of Elizabeth, a fortysomething prototype that had been shelved by Fairchild. Elizabeth is Jane's middle name.

There’s a lesson here for everyone, and it doesn’t involve perserverance or hard work or any nonsense like that. 

Rather, it involves naming your offspring.  Be careful with those monikers.  After all, your child might someday want to found a fashion magazine.  You couldn't really depend on Edwina to be a top-seller and fund your early retirement. 

We hope Jane realizes how fortunate she was to be blessed with both an advertiser-friendly first and middle name--and a sense of self-worth strong enough to name not one but two magazines after herself.  Still, let's hope Elizabeth is a success--you don't want her to go back to hosting talk shows, do you?  Or worse, trying to push Pratt magazine?