Are you a magazine buyer? I know everyone says it’s a dying habit but I can’t believe what a cheap thrill they are in France compared to NZ, so my naughty habit has only increased.  I do read some e-magazines or advertorials such as The Edit by Net a Porter. I don’t actually buy my clothes there but I quite like having a nosy anyway and drooling over all of the bits and pieces I would like to get my hands on.  I did buy the ODOU online version, a well received and awarded new scent / smells / perfume magazine. I know this is terrible but I never actually read it because I couldn’t remember my password and then I got distracted by other things and have never gone back to it. I will rectify that however as I still really want to read it and that was Issue 1 and now they’re up to Issue 3 and the articles look really interesting but I feel guilty ordering it since I haven’t even read the other one I bought. So I will read it this week. This time I’m not going down the e-magazine route, this time it’s going to be print all the way baby so I have it in front of my eyes, simply beckoning me to read it.

Anyway Favourite French Things – there are a lot of them it must be said but a good place to start is magazines. As they’re written in French (bien sur) It sort of adds to the allure as I don’t understand every single word and it adds to the reading experience as I guess what those missing words / phrases are. All good practice I say. So I buy quite a few Grazia’s as they come out every week and they’re nice and easy and perfectly pitched at my current French language ability. Did I mention how cheap a copy of this little mag is?  I know it’s not the most intellectual magazine but it’s a quick flick of pop culture and often it’s only 1 Euro! Bizarrely the price seems to change week to week.  Magazines are never this price in NZ. In fact even the gossip mags are reasonably expensive there. Let alone when you want a Vanity Fair or a British Vogue or anything else that takes your fancy that isn’t published in NZ. Then you’re paying through the teeth and even more if you want the air freighted version.  So if I was still in NZ I would probably be going with the iPad version all the way.

There’s also Vogue Paris, which is good for a flick through.  Quite a few pricy items are housed in its pages.   The jewellery section is particularly exorbitant but I do like getting my hands on it all the same. It’s fairly variable in quality though – sometimes the issue is brilliant other times I don’t really care for any of the photo shoots. It has to be said that there are  a lot of topless shots and this is where it takes a divergent path from the Anglo Saxon mainstream magazines which typically favour  a strategically placed cover up. The editor, Emanuelle Alt is a fashion darling clothed in what looks like seemingly casual attire but is without a doubt very designer, Parisian chic. On a side note I have to say there appears to be little trace of the noted Parisian chic in this neck of the woods and god knows it is very scant in St Tropez where Russian bling bling or a skimpy dash of fringed boho accompanied by seriously scary face reconstruction rules. I digress.

To continue – Vanity Fair is a relatively new entrant to the French magazine scene and as

Picture from Vanity Fair France – Isabelle Adjani and Vincent Perez in La Reine Margot

the articles have often already appeared in the UK / US versions which I usually buy, they provide good French practice fodder. The Vanity Fair articles are  more text centric than the afore mentioned magazines so it does require a bit more gruntwork to get through an article – please remember it’s in French.

The current cover has Isabelle Adjani photographed in a still from her beautifully brutal movie La Reine Margot, one of my favourites.  I still remember the first time I saw this.  I was living in Sydney and saw the movie with some work friends in a little theatre on Oxford St.  It was so intensely full on and just every bloodied shade of red imaginable, I just about couldn’t breathe.

Question Time:

So are you a magazine reader or do you find them a waste of space and time?

Do you still read magazines in actual hard copy?

Or have you gone over to the digital side

Or do you mix it up – a bit of both?