reads

As a journalist I read a lot of articles in any one day. I read anything from an essay on the New Yorker profiling the young acne-scared Russian teen who founded Chatroulette or a short blog post about pear babies on the website of one of my favourite magazines.

For a long time I have thought that it is important to separate this ‘fashion blog’ from my other interests – readers only want pretty pictures and short snippets of text, right? But I think it’s too simplistic and stereotyping to assume that people interested in fashion are not interested in other forms of journalism. I know that I am.

Of course it is important to have a focus – a niche – and I don’t intend to stray too far away from covering fashion and the arts.

Now to the point – three or four times a week I will be posting links to five pieces of writing – whether it be an opinion piece, news article or blog post – that I think are worth reading. Now by no means am I an authority on what you should read, they will just be articles that I have enjoyed that I think you too will enjoy.

It is also part of a wider plan of mine to make my posts more consistent. Over the next few weeks I will develop a few constant themes for posts that will help ensure I maintain the quality of the blog.

So here we go - today's Reads:

In Cold Blood

To celebrate their 85^th anniversary, The New Yorker is delving in to their archives. Over 85 weekdays they are looking back at ‘a notable article, story or poem from the magazine’s history’. Yesterday’s selection was an excerpt from Truman Capote’s classic, ‘In Cold Blood.’ The introduction to the piece, and of course Capote’s work itself, is excellent.

Olivia Bee – the wonder kid.

There is so much focus on tweens, the internet, the sexualisation of children and kids gone wild. Thank god for talented tweens Tavi and 15-year-old photographer Olivia Bee who show that despite what the media would have us believe – not all today's youth have not gone to shit.

Ecstatic

This is a seriously great music review of Mos Def’s “The Ecstatic” by Thomas Madar for Dossier Journal. More than ever it seems that with music it's always about the latest and greatest album of the moment, so it’s refreshing to see a music journo look back at an album a year after its release and reflect on why it was and still is so great.

Naplan

The Naplan test is fucked, that’s all I have to say. But for a more considered, convincing argument about why the league tables suck read my dear friend Ally Foward’s opinion piece for The Age.

In the Cut

If you’re into fashion and you’re not already reading Harriet Walker’s column ‘In the Cut’ on Another – start. Walker’s column looks at the ‘hidden meaning’ behind the seasons' collections. This week she discusses ‘space-age sculpturalism.’Read on!