Glossed Over

Listen Up, Internet: I Am Not Jean Godfrey-June

Here's a statement I never thought I'd have to make:

I am not Jean Godfrey-June. 

Recently I've been flooded with emails from shoddy internet marketers who apparently believe I am the beauty director of Lucky. They send messages titled "Jean Godfrey-June"—nothing conveys credibility like the recipient's full name in the subject line!—and offer services like $500 a month PR packages, help with Quickbooks, and "5 guaranteed interviews with press a month." Seems legitimate!

How do these shady people confuse me with Jean Godfrey-June? Google results, I guess. (Google gives me Godfrey-June's Twitter first, a Gothamist post from 2006 next, and this site third.)

But never mind that my name is on this site. Is it really so difficult to determine that a blog where Jean Godfrey-June's writing skills are impugned, her book mocked, and her ability to do her job is questioned probably does not belong to Jean Godfrey-June? I guess so!

Maybe I should put my name here in 48-pt bold type to prevent confusion. Or maybe I should just change my name to, I don't know, Gene Joffrey-July and find a job where I write meandering personal anecdotes about solid perfume and get disparaged on the internet by frustrated bloggers. Then maybe—maybe!—there'd be grounds for confusion.

For future email entrepreneurs who stumble upon this site and somehow think "Wendy Felton" and years of perhaps unjustifiably angry screeds are secret code for "Jean Godfrey-June," I have three things to say to you:

1. I am not Jean Godfrey-June.

2. If you had half the intelligence of the paper that Lucky is printed on, you’d have figured that out. Yet you continue to hit send on these emails. Which can only mean one thing:

3. You are all idiots.

Lowest Common Denominator: Lucky, September

981: According to the cover, the number of “ways to look amazing this season”

Gazillions: Approximate number of words in this issue. For better or worse (and, in the case of the never-ending article about drunk shopping, it’s definitely worse), there is now actual text in this magazine.

24: Items retailing for less than $50 featured in “Classic Pieces for Every Day”

116: Page on which Jessica Alba’s “Post-Baby Shape-Up Plan” appears, almost entirely devoid of context. I know Lucky is new to this whole writing-complete-sentences-and-forming-paragraphs thing, but they couldn’t follow up on Alba’s statement that she drinks a lot of water because she’s “starving”?

$60: As listed in “City Guide,” the price of a “Carrie Bradshaw-style pink tutu” sold by a store in Los Angeles, like a “Carrie Bradshaw-style” anything is a good thing.

$375: Price of a satchel that is, according to “How To: Wear Color,” the “easiest way to add a shot of color.” 

Zero: Explanation of how “easy” it is to spend $375 on a neon bag.

1, apparently: Words left out of the headline “Dress Like a French Girl. No, Really, a Real French Girl.” That word? “Wealthy,” unless it’s being French that somehow enables one to purchase a $550 dress and an $860 jacket. In which case, vive la France!

$250: Price of a cat-ear hood that Lucky suggests wearing “with a dose of irony, for the downtown hipster.” Behold the amazingly awkward exchange that ensued when I tweeted @LuckyMagazine about this ridiculous headgear! Veronica, aka @duncandesign, joined in to keep the conversation on track.

3: “Stylish New Yorkers” plucked from “the sidewalks of Soho” to model fall fashions in “Style on the Street.”

100: Percent of those random New Yorkers who are conventionally slim and pretty! Surprise!

Not 2: According to Jean Godfrey-June, the number of people permitted in the dressing rooms at Gilly & Hicks, Abercrombie & Fitch’s lingerie store. She says:

(You can’t both go in [the dressing room]; the surroundings are so...provocative...that liaisons are rumored to have occurred in the dressing rooms, hence, a ban.)

Infinitely: How weird it is that Godfrey-June would mention this, considering that in the story she’s shopping with her daughter.

2: Cover lines on the issue of Lucky Kids stuck inside the back cover that are uncomfortably reminiscent of the controversy over 10-year-old model Thylane Blondeau: “Dresses So Pretty You’ll Wish They Came in Your Size” and “I Want My Kid’s Hair Color!” (Related reading: this article about fashion brands using child models to normalize eating disorders.)

0: Interest I had in pulling Lucky Kids out of the magazine--until I needed something to shield my laptop with during a sudden downpour. 

Magazine Masochism: Reading Lucky's May Issue

When I was sixteen, I went with two friends to see Merchant-Ivory’s The Remains of the Day. It was a poor choice for three teenagers shit-faced on Sour Patch Kids: much of the subtle period drama was lost on us. We sat in stunned silence until the end, when one of my friends turned to me in the dark and blurted, “WHAT WAS THAT?” 

That’s how I felt reading the May edition of Lucky. Admittedly, this most crass of magazines is nothing like the nuanced film. But my reaction to this issue was the same as my friend’s to the movie.

Everything about this issue just seemed off. I mean, exclamations like “best doorknob accessory ever!” (page 132) technically make sense, even if decorating doorknobs, let alone determining what sort of overpriced trinket could be crowned the best doorknob ornament ever, never occurred to me. Am I supposed to care about this stuff?

And sure, there’s at least one office on the planet where the denim blazer and yellow micro-shorts pictured in “Four Girls, One Lace Top,” deemed “perfect for work” by accessories designer Meghan Asha, are actually appropriate. That workplace is probably Lucky HQ, but it still counts, right?

But my most profound confusion came from the cover. Check out the lower right-hand corner: this image, from the Lucky Facebook page, says “Dress for Curves: Ginnifer Goodwin shares her styling know-how.” My newsstand copy says:

How to Dress for Curves by Ginnifer Goodwin

OH COME ON. Even allowing that “curvy” is a completely meaningless word, how on earth is Ginnifer Goodwin an expert on this?

Let’s go to the text! From “Southern Comfort,” page 58:

Goodwin’s comfort with her curves [this is where I paused to inspect the three photos of Goodwin on page 66 all Sherlock Holmes-like, seeking evidence of said curves] is largely due to her stylist, Penny Lovell, who introduced the star to tailoring. “I’m three different sizes,” says Goodwin, gesturing to her tiny waist, narrow shoulders and what she calls her “womanly” hips. “I buy things that are big and tailor them down.”

Where do I even begin?

First: Goodwin came to terms with her body “due to her stylist”? How fortunate for her! How unfortunate for the rest of us!

Secondly: being three different sizes doesn’t necessarily mean you’re curvy. It means you’re not a dressmaker’s mannequin. This is not an affliction limited to one particular body type, as anyone who’s tried on a Go International dress at Target well knows.

Next: Your hips are “womanly” because you’re a woman. They’re supposed to be that way.

Finally: Buying clothes to fit the largest part of your body and tailoring them down? This is neither revelatory advice (especially not to anyone who’s seen a single episode of What Not to Wear), nor is it exactly dressing to flatter your body. Also, it’s an utterly unhelpful tip if you’re a discount shopper. If I have to spend an additional $40 to tailor a pair of Gap pants, then I probably can’t afford them.

Now that her clothes fit better, Goodwin is braver about fashion… “Things look better when I embrace my body.”

Aw, what a lovely sentiment! Not so lovely? After recommending a Memphis specialty chocolate store, Goodwin says this:

“If I lived here, I’d be an elephant!”

Yeah, I’m having a little trouble reconciling all the curve-loving euphoria in the previous paragraphs with dehumanizing garbage like this. Eating chocolate—even eating chocolate every day—might make you heavier. It will not make you an elephant. People who weigh more than Ginnifer Goodwin are not the world’s largest land mammals.

The Goodwin article comes to an all-too-merciful end shortly thereafter, but I could go on for hours about this issue. There are the reader quotes that sound exactly like everything else in the magazine. There’s the “smoky-wood-floor” scent Jean Godfrey June describes. There’s the fact that a gainfully employed copyeditor considers “retro-ifies” a valid word, because it appears on page 112. And there’s my growing suspicion that only people with tons of money and zero taste could enjoy this magazine.

By the time I reached the final page, I was cranky, exhausted by the lengthy strings of hyphenated descriptors, and just plain numb. Lucky, please explain yourself: WHAT WAS THAT?

Un-Lucky Break for Kim France: She's Out, Holley's In

It was announced this morning that Brandon Holley will replace Kim France as the editor-in-chief at Lucky. France is leaving Conde Nast altogether, according to a press release posted at Business Insider. Holley is currently editor of Yahoo!'s Shine and formerly was the top editor at Jane and ELLEgirl.

Jane's demise was attributed in part to its failure to attract high-end advertisers, a condition aggravated by the magazine's editorial focus on smaller designers and mass-market brands. As much as Lucky has veered toward pricey merchandise in recent years, it's still no Vogue.

Under its new leadership, will Lucky become even more inaccessible in order to meet this challenge? Why is France leaving? And can she take Jean Godfrey-June with her? Hey, internet, we need answers! (In the meantime, speculation is welcome.)

In Lucky’s Eco Issue, “Green” Means Cash

The April issue of any women’s magazine invariably dedicates plenty of space to the environment and the latest in eco-friendly fashions. Which makes sense, of course, because there’s nothing more sustainable than printing millions of copies of a magazine that encourages readers to purchase new clothes,  accessories, cosmetics, and furnishings and then trucking those stacks of dead trees across the country on a monthly basis! (And to clarify, when I say “sustainable,” I mean it in the ecological sense. It's quite clear a magazine’s business model isn’t exactly economically sustainable.)

This month’s Lucky is the very embodiment of this pattern. Nonetheless, the editorial team managed to halt the relentless parade of consumer goods just long enough to drop some green knowledge. Get ready to follow their eco-examples!

Lucky editors answer: What’s your favorite green strategy?

The responses have one thing in common: at Lucky, green doesn’t just mean environmentally friendly—it means cash. One editor advocates the use of multiple $18 plastic water bottles. Another likes the organic textiles in a $350 duvet. And Jean Godfrey-June, like many of us, carries her groceries in canvas totes instead of plastic bags. Except, unlike many of us, her bags cost $92. EACH.

Still planning to be eco-friendly? Prepare to spend even more! In “The Lucky Guide to the Best of Green Style,” the magazine’s found a selection of ludicrously expensive organic clothes and accessories. There’s a $310 jumpsuit, a $565 jacket, and a $410 recycled leather tote. Wonder if it’s more environmentally sound to opt for paper (cash) or plastic (credit)?

To their credit, however, Lucky has embraced at least one facet of an environmentally friendly lifestyle. On page 110, they suggest an 80s-style ensemble consisting of a blazer, denim cutoffs, and “bright white” canvas tennis shoes, so obviously, they’re really into recycling.

Glossed Over Book Club: Jean Godfrey-June's Free Gift with Purchase, The Merciful End

So, this Jean Godfrey-June book ?  It goes on for an awful long time about lunches.  Sometimes companies serve lavish midday meals at fancy restaurants in order to garner good press!  Real shocker there.  And there are about forty-seven explanations of why she hates having her picture taken.  And then there are a billion pages—approximately—describing various levels of intrigue she faced during her tenure at Elle, which might have been interesting, except that every player is saddled with a cumbersome code name like “Above the Fray.”  The French execs at the magazine try to use European photo shoots in the American edition, and Above the Fray tussles with Eminence Grise and the Playboy and the Fashionista, and, well, there’s a reason we don’t watch daytime soap operas.

We can barely get through the one page she pens in Lucky, so it was clearly expecting too much that we’d be entertained all the way through a 271-page book that consists entirely of poorly organized personal anecdotes and impossible-to-execute beauty tips.  (We tried that concealer stripe, by the way.  No dice.)

All we really wanted out of this book was dirt about Lucky and/or Kim France. And now that we've read every single page, some of them twice because they were so incomprehensible, we’ve compiled a list, based mostly on the book’s final chapter, of the details we gleaned.  We hope that these small morsels of information will be enough to prevent all of you from undertaking the onerous task of reading Free Gift with Purchase.

1. Jean’s office at the magazine is “private-but-not-exactly-private.”  We don’t know what that means either!  Apparently, Jean is so confident in her descriptive abilities that she doesn’t feel the need to expound on this.

2. Speaking of nebulous descriptions:

If Kim uses the word perfect to describe someone, it’s not a good sign.  “She’s overperfect!” Kim once said of an impeccable, extremely fashiony [agh!] staff member, who, incidentally, ejected herself early on.  (There are plenty of superhot gals at Lucky, don’t get me wrong, by perfect I mean that smug, overly groomed, tucked-and-folded-scarf thing that some pretty girls feel enhances their attractiveness.)

3. In a departure from the magazine world’s status quo, the fashion department is “not mean.”  What a ringing endorsement!

4. Kim France has banned the use of certain words in the magazine, which explains why they feel the need to make up new ones!

…we ripped through “bohemian” in the first year; “glamorous” and “amazing” are currently on the endangered list.  “Fashionista” has been banned from the start.

5. Flattery will get you everywhere at Lucky.

Kim is smart smart smart and beautiful and successful (I know, it’s kissing up to the boss, but it’s true)...

6. We believe this claim is a blatant lie:

My test for any piece of writing I’m involved with is known around the office as the “Say this aloud to your smartest friend” test.  Would the friend look at you as if you were crazy?  Don’t write it that way, then.

Really?  Really?  Either Jean doesn’t know anyone who’s very smart, or her friends have a high tolerance for insanity.

7. Finally, Jean once attempted to wear a pair of mold-encrusted shoes to party.  Which, presumably, is why she’s writing about makeup and not about fashion.

Next up in the Glossed Over book club? Falling Out of Fashion, written by Jane Pratt’s former assistant Karen Yampolsky, is the almost-true tale of the editor-in-chief of Sassy and Jane magazines.  We don’t want to give too much away, but we can tell you this much: editorial wunderkind Jill White has an absolutely stellar assistant! 

Glossed Over Book Club: Jean Godfrey-June's Free Gift with Purchase, Chapters Two-Four

Chapter Two:  This is the chapter that made us almost—almost—like Jean Godfrey-June.  (Don’t worry—the feeling quickly faded.)  Her tale of sneaking into the bathroom to apply makeup before her boyfriend woke up struck a chord with us.  Her recollection of a science teacher who turned slaughterhouse remnants into Viking helmets did not.  There was an actual point to the story, something trite about how beauty rituals allow people to have control in a chaotic world, but we aren’t sure how the science teacher anecdote related to it, and we refuse to read those paragraphs again.  Ew.

Chapter Three: Jean’s father eats tuna covered in ketchup and molasses every morning.  We’re sure there was more substance (or at least more text) to this chapter, but that disgusting concoction is pretty much all we remember.  Oh!  And she’s always had the obnoxious habit of adding suffixes to extant words to create, well, non-extant ones.  As a child, she added “-ington” to people’s names—Jeanington, etc.  And, in a stunning display of naivete or stupidity, she chose to attend the University of Colorado because the subscription cards in her favorite magazines were addressed to Boulder, and she therefore assumed that the city was a hotbed of periodical publishing.  Sure, we’ve made life choices based on false information too, but you don’t see us writing about them for the world to see, do you?

Chapter Four: In what is surely its first appearance ever, the phrase “nasolabial-fold-emphasizing” appears in a story about getting a pedicure with a porn star.  (And we’re not sure what this says about our reading material, but we’ve seen that  “nasolabial” everywhere lately, usually followed by the admonition that it’s not dirty.  Enough!  We know!)  There are multiple tales of beauty rivalries with friends that are neither interesting nor vicious nor revelatory.  Beauty tip: Lauren Hutton suggests drawing a concealer stripe down the center of your nose  to make it look smaller.  And news flash!  Models endorsing beauty products are just there to collect a paycheck.  One unnamed model floundered when it was her turn to present the products to Jean; another anonymous mannequin admitted publicly that she had never smelled the fragance she was touting.

Next up: Jean continues her series of stories that are probably charming if you know her personally but are inexorably dull to the those of us who don’t.  Also, she goes out to lunch!  A lot!

Glossed Over Book Club: Jean Godfrey-June's Free Gift with Purchase

Last week, we celebrated our birthday.  And now we’re old!  Awesome!  One of our gifts was a copy of Jean Godfrey-June’s book, Free Gift with Purchase: My Improbable Career in Magazines and Makeup.  We didn’t open it for a few days because, well, we were busy studying the bags under our eyes.  But last night, we put on our glasses and succumbed to the siren call of the paperback.  We couldn’t hold off any longer. Godfrey-June’s column is the second thing we read in Lucky every month, right after Kim France’s letter from the editor.  And we had so many questions! 

• Would Godfrey-June’s aversion to plastic surgery somehow make us feel better about our aging face?  Not so far!

• Were the descriptors inside as shamelessly fabricated as the words in her monthly column?  Sure, if you count the use of “tint-y.”

• Would the book be crammed with lengthy go-nowhere personal anecdotes?  Well, yeah.  Like the book would even exist without boring tales from her childhood?

• And would she spill any insider dirt about Lucky?  Sort of.  But we’re only on the first chapter.  Hope abounds!

After the jump, the highlights from Chapter One.

Lucky: Jean Godfrey-June Isn't Even Trying

Jean Godfrey-June, what do you do all day?  You do spend your working hours reading press releases and listening to pitches from publicists, right?  The junior staffers at Lucky do keep you apprised of the latest industry developments, don’t they?  Because you’re supposed to be an expert, introducing us readers to the limited editions, the indulgent imports, the potions we haven’t heard about because they exist only in samples and don’t go on sale for six more months. Instead, this is what merits a write-up in your December  column, “The Beauty Closet”:

…I didn’t think it was possible to improve upon the blotting sheet.  Except for one small detail: When your reach into the little envelope to get one out, the sheets are so thin compared to your giantess fingers that you inadvertently extract many…

In an astounding flash of genius,

Which—spoiler warning!—is a complete overstatement.

…someone at Neutrogena has put a sticky spot on the inside flap that deftly lifts a single sheet and serves it up perfectly.

Ooh, a “sticky spot.” Amazing!  How clever!  That’s the kind of innovation and technology that put man on the moon! And—what a coincidence!—it’s identical to the “sticky spot” that’s been part of the package of our store-brand blotting sheets, like, forever. Way to be on the lookout for the latest and greatest, Jean.  There are two other Neutrogena products featured in the beauty section, including a glowing review of their makeup remover wipes (which are also pretty much like every other brand of makeup remover wipes).  Either these women love the stuff beyond all reason, or this is some seriously misguided advertorial.

Even if it is pay-for-play, we refuse to believe JG-J would be hanging out in skincare-research labs tracking down innovations and testing new forumlations on primates.  Her other featured product this month is a Jo Malone fragrance, which is probably indeed lovely, but who cares?  Is there a Lucky reader alive who hasn’t heard of Jo Malone?

The other possibility?  Maybe Lucky’s beauty editor really is transfixed by small dots of adhesive.  In which case, next month we expect wide-eyed astonishment at the wonder of flip-top shampoo bottles!  Apparently, it’s no longer necessary to pour an entire bottle into the palm of your hand!  And we’re breathlessly awaiting her special report on travel-size products!  Those miniature tubes of toothpaste are, like, the most genius creation ever!

Lucky: The Magazine About Shopping, Style, and Jean Godfrey-June

You know what we miss?  The days when Kim France could be reliably counted on for a self-indulgent editor’s letter.  Let’s be clear: we think her reigned-in notes are a huge improvement.  And we hope that means she’s happier with her life now that she doesn’t feel the need to spew personal details in every issue of Lucky.  But, honestly?  She was incredibly entertaining—albeit incredibly infuriating—back then.

Fortunately, Jean Godfrey-June has stepped into the role of resident staffer who shares life details for no apparent reason, and there's the added bonus for us that Godfrey-June rarely makes any sense!  At least France’s tangents were marginally related to the topic at hand.  Godfrey-June’s pieces, on the other hand, are often so random that we wonder whether anyone even edits her copy.  What, does she phone it in directly to the printer from the back of a speeding cab?

There’s an autobiographical tidbit in the October “Editor’s Letter,” in which France asks other staffers to share personal recollections about fragrance.  The editor-in-chief doesn’t even share her own story, which is amazing, because the old Kim France never bothered to ask about other people.  But here’s Godfrey-June’s answer:

In true Northern California late-‘70s style, my mother had a bottle of Zen by Shiseido, which I think all her cool, bohemian friends also wore—they had lives, and the Zen spoke to me of having a life.  It still smells really sexy to me.

Ah, yes, having a life.  Way to aim high, young Jean!  The concept—associating a scent with certain people—is sound, so it wasn’t until we got to “The Beauty Closet” that we began to suspect she had inhaled a bit too much of the Shiseido potion in her youth. 

For starters, she writes:

What would happen if you cracked open a Magic 8-ball? is my daughter’s favorite question.  Some old stale water, perhaps a bit of food coloring, and a many-sided piece of plastic emblazoned with “yes,” “most likely,” and “reply hazy, try again” is what you’d get, is my typical answer.

Which is level-headed and reasonable and everything…it just has absolutely nothing to do with anything else in the column.  Is it really such a stretch to fill the page?  She continues with a story about taking her kids to a press conference, which at least has the potential to be charming.  The key word here is potential.

Through some rather glamorous extenuating circumstances, [her “working-mom thing”] most recently broke down in Paris…

Glamorous circumstances!  What could those be?  Maybe she’s saving the story for a column in 2008, because she never explains why she was forced to drag her children to a cosmetics-industry press conference.   

At this point, we hoped (against hope, it turned out) the kids’ involvement would at least yield some adorable anecdote.  The quote below, however, is as close as the story veers to cute.

…my exceptionally short, unaccredited-journalist sidekicks were riveted.  Even the antiaging portion, which involved charts about cellular regeneration, was popular: “I loved that whole human-body part!” reminisced my five-year-old later, his eyes shining.

Yeah, yeah, the kid’s gonna grow up to be a doctor.  So what about the Magic 8-ball?

When [the Lancome Destiny Cube] appeared, however, the peanut gallery (myself included) went crazy.  While it’s not an 8-ball—

“Not an 8-ball.”  Uh, doesn’t that render the intro totally irrelevant? Unless...hmm...the cube and the 8-ball are both made of black plastic.  And they both have stuff inside.  So they’re, like, practically the same thing! 

it wears its mystery on the outside, with chic words like “coquette” and “jalouse” stamped on its facets, interspersed with moons and stars and secret symbols—when you crack it open, you get both a darkish-bright and a sparkly-translucent lip gloss, the palest pink and the faintest green eyeshadows, both so wearable as to entice a non-eyeshadow holdout.

If we managed to follow that extraordinarily long sentence correctly (and we think we did), we learned these three things:

1. It is possible for a substance to be both “darkish” and “bright” at the same time.

2. There are, apparently, people in the world who identify as “non-eyeshadow holdouts,” or shadow wearers have a name for those who abstain.  Either way, it’s weird.

And, perhaps most importantly,

3. Even if you connect two items that have only the vaguest resemblance, tell a story that fails to be interesting, and nullify your own premise, all in the name of a pricey product, you can still have a successful career in beauty writing.  Even a truly magic 8-ball couldn’t have predicted that.