Glossed Over

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.

Lucky's Jean Godfrey-June Goes Against "Type"

Ever modest, Lucky suggests we organize our accessories just like they do at the magazine’s HQ.  From “Lucky How-To,” September:

Store your jewelry…just like we do at magazines

Because, you know, the Lucky way is the best way!  Their tip about jewelry trays is valid…so in what other ways would we want to emulate Lucky?  If we ever wanted to make up words, amass a collection of expensive rubber pants, and sport the occasional heinous outfit (hello, Vanessa Minillo on the July cover), we’d definitely turn to Lucky for advice. 

Plus, Lucky beauty editor Jean Godfrey-June is extremely skilled at using the most inconsequential of personal anecdotes and stretching them into impassioned endorsements for overpriced beauty products, like the $48 hand cream she touts in September’s “The Beauty Closet.”  Hand cream!  $48!  The only thing more unbelievable than the price of the Peter Thomas Roth lotion is the story she tells to promote it.

My small town teems with Hollywood “types,” some legitimate, many wannabe or has-been.  They’re easy to identify:

Do tell us about “types”!  Is a “type” a man in sandals?  A woman who wears her sunglasses in a restaurant?

When they get ready to do something rude—say, shushing fellow adults as if they were toddlers, or elbowing past the crowd to grab the last tomato at the farmers’ markets—they press their hands together, as if in prayer.  Whether or not the “prayer” is accompanied by a bowing of the head, the gesture is the single most obnoxious of our time.

Well, yeah, that does sound annoying.  But those Hollywood “types” doing this sort of thing?  We live in L.A. and we’ve never once seen such a gesture.  Also, her description doesn’t make sense.  How do you press your palms together while plowing through a throng of people?  That isn’t to say this behavior doesn’t exist in Jean’s town—but maybe it has nothing to do with being a Hollywood “type” and everything to do with being an inconsiderate ass.

The practitioner may well be thinking, “I come in peace,” or more Hollywood, “I bow to what is holy in you.”  But the true message is unequivocal: “I am holier than thou!”

Also holier than thou?  People on the East Coast making broad generalizations about the way people on the other side of the country think and behave.  Yeesh.

Anyway, she goes on for a few more sentences about this alleged behavior and how returning the gesture is the sole defense against it.  (Don’t ask us to explain.  We read the whole thing three times and we’re still confused.)   Somewhere in the course of this fruitless exercise, we began to wonder what any of this had to do with the potion she’s tasked with hawking.  And what would Jean consider a “Hollywood type” beauty product, anyway?  A face lift?  Botox injections?  The blood of pious virgins?

Nope, it’s a $48 hand cream that magically trumps the lousy behavior of showbiz scoundrels.  We’ll let her describe it, since we found her segue to be a bit of a stretch:   

A smooth and youthful hand—naturally featured in this exchange—further irritates most Hollywood types, as age grates upon them more than most…

Good to know—having more youthful-looking hands is a surefire defense against annoying people!  Sounds like that cream would come in handy in places other than Hollywood…like, say, Jean Godfrey-June’s office.

A Glossed Over Guide: Becoming a Big-Time Beauty Editor

We never thought being a beauty editor was a particularly simple task—if you know what all those different mascara brushes do, you’re way ahead of us—but after reading Jean Godfrey-June’s completely phoned-in column, “The Beauty Closet,” in the June issue of Lucky, we’ve changed our tune.  In fact, based on this page alone, we’ve discerned there are just four easy steps to becoming a top beauty editor:

1.  Carefully select your featured products.  Think you should patrol out-of-the-way boutiques and track down women brewing body lotion in their kitchens?  Not necessary.  It isn’t even mandatory to seek out new formulations or effective innovations to share with your readers.  In fact, all you need to do is read the press releases from a couple of national chain stores, and maybe stroll through the cosmetics aisle at CVS once in a while.  Following the example set in Jean’s June column, a typical article can contain ringing endorsements of mass-manufactured products from commonplace shops like Bath and Body Works and Crabtree & Evelyn.  And why not throw in a L’oreal lip gloss that can be purchased in pretty much any drugstore in the U.S.?  Done!

2.  Find colorful ways to describe the items. Beauty editors are supposed to be creative, so be bold with your language.  Don’t be afraid to refer to candles with nonsensical descriptions like “stuffy, stodgy chic,” and feel free to use cloying constructions like “uber-British-y.”  Not sure what these phrases actually mean?  Don’t worry!  Your readers won’t know either!

3.  Keep the big picture in mind. Never forget that, as a beauty editor, your job is to sell products that no one really needs. Don’t hesitate to overstate the cultural importance of common items like lip gloss if you think it’ll move a few more units, and be sure to couch even the most pedestrian of beauty aids in convoluted, grandiose language.  Even though no one will truly comprehend your prose, they won’t want to admit it.  For example:

Women no longer powder their noses; cigarettes are out; only lipstick remains, a final holdout of the glamorous secreting away of oneself in full view that was once the epitome of femininity.

No editor will dare to delete sweeping generalizations about the nature of womanhood!

4.  Don’t sweat the small stuff.  For instance, don’t bother figuring out whether a shower foam saves time over a shower gel because it doesn’t require lathering.  No one’s going to test any of your baseless claims anyway because, well, they’re insignificant.  (How much time do you spend working up a lather in the shower?  Mere seconds!  See?)  Likewise, don’t waste a moment pondering if you, as the beauty editor, should even be recommending home accessories like candles, even if your magazine has a home decor section where candles would be much better suited.

With practice and persistence, a beauty editor position is easily attainable.  And if you get discouraged, keep the faith:  these four steps obviously worked for Jean Godfrey-June.

Previously:  A Glossed Over Guide: Parlaying Your Pregnancy Into Press

Surprise! Lucky Staff Actually Competent

We can’t believe we’re about to say this: we just read the April issue of Lucky, and we found very little to bitch about.

Yep, we’re shocked too.

Let’s start with the cover: We preferred the halcyon days (you know, 2002) when anonymous models graced Lucky’s cover, but it’s hard to argue with Parker Posey, especially when—get this—she’s not actually promoting anything.  (Except herself, apparently, but that’s good enough for us.  We loathed Superman Returns.)

So we flipped to the “Editor’s Letter,” which, for obvious reasons, is always the first thing we read.  We’re all about the schadenfreude!  But for the third consecutive month, Kim France mentions herself only in a not-too-personal, shopping-related context.

I never thought there was such a thing as a straw bag I’d seriously consider splurging on, much less carrying to work, or that a bright blue patent leather bag existed that I’d ever even consider thinking of as “me.”

We can handle that kind of revelation.  Further proof of some kind of transformation (or that someone else is actually writing these things):  she actually praises staffer Noria Morales—a far cry from her harsh treatment of Jean Godfrey-June—and leads with a thoughtful-enough discussion about whether this month’s New Orleans shopping guide is insensitive. 

Then there’s the language:  though dicey confabs like “vintagey,” “fashiony,” and “drapey” do squeak through, this issue is largely lacking the cloying language we’ve railed against.  We aren’t in love with “plant-y” or “organic-phile,” but at least we understand what they mean, which is a vast improvement over “just statement-y enough.”  We’re still puzzling over that one.

No, we haven’t completely abandoned our standards—we didn’t appreciate everything about this issue.  For instance: 

•  Was it really necessary to use “gleamy” five different times?  (See for yourself: pages 76, 129, 233, and 267, and “gleamiest” on 240.) 

•  If they’re going to feature real women so prominently (see “Real-Life Sunscreen Prescriptions,” “Real Ways to Wear Dresses,” “Four Girls, One Wrap Skirt,” “Lucky Girl”), couldn’t they find at least one who doesn’t closely approximate a professional model?  Seriously, Kim: put a size-12 woman in one of these reader-oriented features.

•  Jean Godfrey-June bores us.

•  And another story about layering?  Yawn.  Plus we’re feeling a bit of cognitive dissonance about a model wearing four layers above the waist with bare legs.  Put some tights on!   

Still, we’re nitpicking.  And even if Kim and company never top this issue, we won’t really mind.  The only thing we love more than a good issue of Lucky is a terrible one.

Lucky Staffers: Experts in Style, Snapping at Co-Workers

We dared hope that Kim France’s apparently diminished sense of self-importance—however temporary—would have a positive effect on Lucky staffers, because we are convinced that anyone so egocentric in print must be downright insufferable to work for. We dared to dream that the same confused but peaceful fog that fell over us as we read the current “Editor’s Letter” would also drift over the magazine’s HQ.  The changed workplace bound to result from France’s near-miraculous transformation would eventually yield reduced stress levels, less strenuous disagreements at staff meetings, and, most importantly for us, fewer made-up words.  Sure, Kim’s personality shift might make things more boring for us—we do look forward to her self-possessed screeds, after all—but Lucky would make up for it with inventive photo shoots and innovative fashion stylings.  Right?

Well, not so much.

Instead, in a move straight out of Lord of the Flies, creative director Andrea Linett fills the role, stepping in as the magazine’s chief antagonist.  Jean Godfrey-June documents this development in “Beauty Spy,” February:

At the end of a long, harrowing business trip, several members of the Lucky staff found themselves in San Francisco for one day, sitting in a single (if lovely) hotel room staring at one another, waiting for a final meeting, feeling haggard and jet-lagged.  We examined our respective emails for the 90th time, attempted to talk over one another on our cellphones, flipped the silenced TV from CNN to Oprah and back again.  “You’re the beauty editor,” blurted Andrea, looking at me.  “Find us a spa.”

It’s not enough the poor woman is forced into doing Kim France’s makeup.  Now she’s required to keep the other staffers entertained on business trips?  We aren’t huge fans of Godfrey-June (primarily because we are bored to tears by her modus operandi  of relating a personal anecdote only tenuously linked to the beauty product at hand to explain why she has grown irrationally attached to some new exfoliant/lip balm/perfume), but this woman has the patience of a saint.  If only that could be bottled up and, oh, sprayed on Andrea Linett.

In any case, it’s clear the calming effects of Kim’s break from navelgazing didn’t reach too far down the masthead.  Still, we’re consoled knowing that if the editor-in-chief has opted to permanently retire her diva crown, someone’s ready to step up and take her place.

We Read It So You Don't Have To: The Un-Lucky Life of Jean Godfrey-June

We hate to admit it, but this week’s installment of We Read It So You Don’t Have To will only save you the time it takes to peruse one page of September’s Lucky.  Still, it’s an egregiously obnoxious one page, so we’ll forge ahead with our summary of Jean Godfrey-June’s “Beauty Spy.”

This month, just like every other month, she initially doubts that she’ll like the product she’ll eventually promote. Is the fragrance too strong? Can any anti-aging ingredient live up to the dramatic claims of its manufacturers? Will the results really be worth the thirty seconds a day it takes to apply the product?

Then, also like every other month, she relates a dull anecdote only vaguely related to the product in question. She rides an elevator with someone who comments on the way she looks and/or smells. Her kids and/or husband question her religious use of some new-fangled device. Or there was this one thing that happened a very long time ago that, through a highly dubious sense of which topics are related, she manages to connect to the product in question.

And—you guessed it, just like every other month—she falls irrevocably in love with the item, cost be damned, and she hoards enough to last through a nuclear winter.

At this point, if these columns are to be believed, the woman must own enough beauty products to stock a Sephora.  And have you seen her on TV? She doesn’t even appear to wear makeup. What is she doing with all of this stockpiled stuff? Should we organize an intervention? Is Lucky complicit in her addiction by depicting her as a charmingly slender and well-dressed cartoon character each month?

But never mind all that negativity—it’s not important. We choose to look at the upside of this potentially disastrous situation: if Jean Godfrey-June continues to trot out these tired tropes month after month, we won’t need to bother reading her page. And we don’t have to relate a boring tale from our childhood to know that skipping this nonsense is something we can recommend to everyone.

The further adventures of Jean Godfrey-June: Lucky Sets New Standard for Passive-Aggressiveness, Long Lashes; Now Which Staffer Will Take Care of Her Hair?

Photo of Jean Godfrey-June and her ever-increasing collection from the News and Observer

Lucky Sets New Standard for Passive-Aggressiveness, Long Lashes

Lucky’s beauty editor, Jean Godfrey-June, uses her July column to relate an unusual ritual taking place at the magazine’s HQ:

We all love one mascara until one person’s lashes mysteriously look longer than everybody else’s, and two days later the entire office has run out and bought the new version du jour.

Sheesh. It’s like “Harrison Bergeron” come to life—one staffer simply cannot have longer lashes than anyone else! Everyone must be equal, or at least have equally full and glossy eyelashes.

How does this work, exactly? How do Lucky staffers manage to publish a magazine while so utterly wrapped up in the quest for the longest lashes? It must be incredibly time consuming keeping tabs on everyone: They have to ruthlessly inspect each woman in the office to see who maintains the lushest eyelashes, they must interrogate to find out what product(s) she’s using, they need to scheme to compensate for any kind of genetic advantage she may have, they’re forced to run to Duane Reade/Macy’s/Sephora and purchase those potions at any cost, and then it is absolutely crucial that they apply their purchases religiously. Then just show up to work—voilà! Everyone’s equal! No one has any kind of advantage whatsoever!—and repeat as necessary.

This anecdote only contributes to the not-entirely-misguided notion that fashion magazines set unrealistic beauty standards for women—based on Godfrey-June’s story, merely working at one is a fatal blow to any sense of individuality.  Worse, the competitiveness makes working at Lucky sound akin to being back in high school, except that in high school the skirmishes were occasionally related to something that actually mattered.

Unless, of course, winning the unofficial crown of “Longest Eyelashes in the Office” is truly important to these women.  In which case we probably shouldn’t put much stock in anything they say.

Now Which Staffer Will Take Care of Her Hair?

Kim France shouldn’t have titled February’s missive “Shoot Me Now.”  If she’s anything like her editor’s letters indicate, a member of her staff may well take her up on the offer. 

Not that we condone violence.  We just don’t believe in tempting fate.

As usual, the page’s content was grating. Writing that she engaged in a “whisperfight”—yes, as one word—with Andrea Linett worked our nerves, but it was the first vignette she related that really sent us over the edge.  Here’s how it played out, accompanied by a headless snapshot (tempting fate again!) of Kim:

Recently, our fashion director Hope Greenberg came over to my house, dumped all the contents of my closet onto my bed...

…where she already keeps several outfits, as we learned a few months back.  Wonder if Hope had to dig through the sheets for the rest of Kim’s clothes?

I would have happily paid Hope for her efforts...

...but her duties at Lucky include providing personal services for the editor-in-chief.  Just ask Jean Godfrey-June.

I should add, however, that her goal was not entirely altruistic: She and the rest of the fashion crew are simply dog-tired of hearing me whine and drone about how I can’t get dressed for anything: not work, not parties, not to walk the poor dog.

In short, she did it to shut me up.

And we certainly can’t begrudge Hope Greenberg for wanting that. We’re just going to consider ourselves lucky (pun intended) that we’ll never be conscripted into Kim France’s service in order to keep her quiet—we can just turn the page.  

All This and Health Insurance Too

We really don’t want to keep slagging on Kim France’s monthly missives, but she makes it so easy. From October:

I waited until the very last minute for this month’s photo to be taken, so Jean Godfrey-June, our peerless beauty director, was put on code-blue makeup duty.

Which we’re sure she appreciated, since she has no other duties at the magazine than to do than the editor-in-chief’s makeup.

At first she messed up the brows and said in a panic, "I’m not a makeup artist. I’m a writer by trade!"

Exactly. Writing about makeup doesn’t necessarily qualify one to apply it. France fails to recognize this might be a problem, and Godfrey-June soldiers on. In the end, while the beauty editor is satisfied, France doesn’t even comment on the finished job. Instead, she offers this bit of what is either friendly advice or sheer bitchery:

Quit your day job and you’re dead, Jean.

Ouch.

To top it off, the photo doesn’t even show the finished makeup job, just the beauty director acting as makeup artist on call. We love Lucky (really, we do), but sometimes we think it’s probably not a very nice place to work.