Goodbye to weekend magazines

Things change gradually and one day you suddenly realise that something you have always thought or felt is no more.  I used to look forward to the weekend newspapers for the magazines. I also used to love reading other magazines and even subscribed to a few.

As I flicked through this weekend’s crop I realised that they are now so irrelevant to me that – apart from the occasional article - I won’t miss them. Yay for the British fashion industry and I am sure that it attracts much attention and many jobs but jackets in the thousands of pounds, handbags similarly priced are completely irrelevant to me and, if the high street is anything to go by, millions more. 

I am vaguely interested in fashion, jewellery, furniture etc and read the FT How to Spend it with the same detached interest as I do the catalogue of the National Gallery. I don’t expect to able to afford it, to own it or indeed to spend it – but enjoy the view.

Some years ago, when working with (charity) cause-related marketing, I learned something about how clothes are presented in catalogues.  Even though the catalogue is aimed at those over 60 – the models are all in their thirties but with slightly old-fashioned hairstyles.  Apparently that is “aspirational” we still think of ourselves as younger, perhaps wore those hairstyles and have a misty-eyed view which will induce us to think that we will look 35 in the Damart track suit (I am not knocking it – the cosiest and warmest thing for working from home in winter). 

Back to the Sunday magazines – they are now beyond aspiration – they don’t send me out to the high street to see if I can replicate it for less money; I can’t buy a new beauty product every week and have abandoned keeping cuttings of interesting looking products in case I need some gloop when my gloop runs out. In any event – beauty editors are not exactly unbiased – it isn’t that they are paid to promote products unless you count gifts in kind......

I hope this is wisdom kicking in.