Jezebel: fashionista diaries

Dear Magazines: Please Stop Prostituting Your Interns

Jessica — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 13:30:00 EST

Interns have had a reputation as office mattresses for quite a while now, and the recent spate of intern-whoring at magazines is only making matters worse. First Teen Vogue creates an entire brand around a couple of marginally-intelligent and barely legal blondes, and then last week, Blackbook realized the viral marketing success of Aussie editorial intern and subway object of affection Camille Hayton and decided to sell out their adorable marketing intern by offering a dream date with her. Now, Canadian mag Flare is looking for a fashion intern. The catch is that to apply, applicants must send in a video pitch, which will be voted on by flare.com's readers.

According to Coutorture, "Videos are going to be scored based on weighted averages, 75% by the judges, and 25% by the general public." Before viral marketing and cross platform synergy, being an intern just meant unpaid humiliation at the hands of generally embittered and often irrational publishing types. Apparently now being an intern means humiliating yourself on the internet and/or television to further a brand that might not ever pay you a regular salary. Oh wait, being an intern is also about being super cute and camera-ready (Hello,
Fashionista Diaries). I forgot about that part. The future is bleak, my friends.

Fashion Internships In A 2.0 World [Coutorture]

'The Fashionista Diaries': Devora Rose Gives Mandie "Cunt Face" Erickson A Run For Her Money

Tracie — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 13:00:00 EDT

Poor Laurie—the assistant to replace Nicole-from-Queens at Seventh House—is really being baptized by fire in Manhattan's PR world. First she had an encounter with Devora Rose, the EIC of a magazine that we don't read, and was all but told that her size-6 frame could benefit from a lack of food. (BTW, Devora Rose used to be a stripper. Social life, indeed!) Then Cunt Face made a bunch of mean-girl remarks about her Gucci shoes. How fucking unprofesh was that? Does she suddenly not have the balls to be mean to people's faces? We were left with the awesome cliffhanger of Laurie storming off to confront Cunt Face. Ooh! We can't wait! Anyway, we hope that Laurie doesn't become so depressed learning the ropes of that biz that she eventually hangs herself with them.

The Fashionista Diaries' Mandie 'Cunt Face' Erickson: Before She Was Famous

Tracie — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 11:00:00 EDT

A very awesome reader pointed us in the direction of this photo of The Fashionista Diaries' Mandie "Cunt Face" Erickson from back in the day (way back—before Natasha's junkie, scabby face looked like a connect-the-dots puzzle), and suggests that perhaps CF's raspy voice was brought on by smoking crack with Natasha Lyonne. Well, we don't know about that, but we do know about CF's Amazon Wish List. Maybe we can all chip in for Unhooked: How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love, And Lose At Both.

'The Fashionista Diaries': Ebony And Ivory

Tracie — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 15:30:00 EDT

The storyline of Flirt! Cosmetics assistants Janjay and Tina finally got interesting on last night's episode of The Fashionista Diaries; after all, it was inevitable that the editors would get around to playing up the cultural differences between the two girls. (Tina is a white girl from Connecticut and Janjay is straight outta Liberia.) It was sort of amazing how stereotypical it all was. The girls discussed jungle fever, Janjay took Tina to Sunday mass at her Baptist church, then she encouraged Tina to eat fried chicken.

Andrew From 'Fashionista Diaries' Has Convincingly Straight MySpace Profile

Tracie — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 14:30:00 EDT

So, we're obsessing a little bit about the interns/assistants from The Fashionista Diaries after last night's cliffhanger in which the poor kids found out that Jane magazine folded. On a whim we searched for Andrew on MySpace and we were over-the-moon at what we discovered. First up: That picture to the left. All sarcasm aside, we're truly wondering if this was taken at a Saturday Night Fever theme night or something. Suddenly though, everything about him is making so much more sense to us. Every time the show tried to remind us that Andrew is straight we would snicker. But now, after reviewing his profile, the sculpted eyebrows make so much sense to us. He's not gay—he's a guido! (Of Greek descent.) We should've seen the signs after reading his Q&A on Soapnet. When asked about haircare he said:

Every type of pomade out on the market. But my signature is my dry spike, achieved using Vavoom Freeze spray and a lot of patience.

After the jump, topless shots of Andrew.

Andrew, 24, hails from Bucks County, PA. He only has 12 MySpace friends: 11 girls and Tom. We can't tell if he's being exclusive or what, but his "About Me" suggests that he's open to adding more people:

Well, I just moved to NYC, trying to meet some cool new people...Im a fashion designer- so fashion and design are my life!!! I am a living out my dream of working towards a name for myself in the crazy world! I have a great personality, def. not shy at all and am always looking for cool new friends...

We wonder what Bridget thinks of these two:

Andrew's Profile [MySpace]
All About Andrew [Soapnet]
Earlier: 'The Fashionista Diaries': 'Jane' Magazine Folds

'The Fashionista Diaries': 'Jane' Magazine Folds!

Tracie — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 11:00:00 EDT

We were left with a big cliffhanger on last night's Fashionista Diaries when Andrew and Rachel received text messages from Bridget (who heard from Cunt Face, who read it on the internet) that Jane magazine was folding. The poor kids were sitting in a conference room eating lunch, blissfully unaware of all the blurry-faced Jane employees (who obvs didn't sign release forms) frantically running around, filling up boxes with their personal effects. We're not completely sure if keeping Andrew and Rachel in the dark was a machination on part of the show's producers, or if it really went down that way. We consulted a former Jane staffer, who said, "That's a tough question because I think it took a lot of people by surprise, genuinely. They could have been off doing some task anyway and not known, but the powers of SoapNet thus far have never ceased to amaze me." BTW, how excited do you think CF was when she found out that she's the one who broke the news of poor Rachel's dashed dreams?

'The Fashionista Diaries': Gays and Dolls

Tracie — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 13:00:00 EDT

We were psyched for Cunt Face to interview girls to replace Nicole on last night's Fashionista Diaries. Fresh blood! As ever, CF really went above and beyond her cunt duties by rolling her eyes for seemingly no reason immediately after meeting her first ~~victim~~ interviewee. But the biggest bitch of all last night was Bridget's gay BF Kristian Laliberte. We were so proud of Andrew for recognizing what a turd this guy is. (BTW, how ridiculously Bret Easton Ellis-y are Andrew, Bridget, and Kristian? Label-conscious, privileged white kids) Bridget seems to be drawn to bitches and turds, right? Birds of a feather, we suppose. Anyway, after the jump, The Gays of our Lives: Bridget Helene Edition.

So one of Bridget's bosses is Matt Kays. We were pleased that his neon and rhinestone bolo tie made it into this episode.

But elaborate necklaces are his thing, we were to learn.

For real, like, come out of the accessories closet, and stay out. We're all about equality for men and women around here, but we also sort of want to retain ownership of the right to wear cocktail rings.

And then there's Kristian the turd. We it was fitting that he was introduced ass-first.

It's also fitting that a turd would wear so much bronzer he's brown.

We're left wondering if he left skid marks on that white couch—from the bronzer, we mean.