How Sassy Changed My Life (17 page)
Read How Sassy Changed My Life Online
Authors: Kara Jesella
To this day, none of the former Stepford
Sassy
staffers have commented on what they hoped to accomplish with such a mean-spirited, bitter, and vindictive letter to their readers.
Sassy
staffers have commented on what they hoped to accomplish with such a mean-spirited, bitter, and vindictive letter to their readers.
Jane remembers reading her name in the despised new
Sassy
, accusing her of checking out, and likens it to “a mother saying, âYour father just ran off, he doesn't want you!' It was like, âOh my god, my poor readers!'”
Sassy
, accusing her of checking out, and likens it to “a mother saying, âYour father just ran off, he doesn't want you!' It was like, âOh my god, my poor readers!'”
But nothing could be done to bring
Sassy
back from the grave. After all, Lang didn't sell
Sassy
because of unpopularity or lack of loyalty from its readership. For some, the very presence of the new
Sassy
served as a nagging reminder that the glory days were over. Fan Cheryl Taruc illustrates this, saying that the mere act of catching a glimpse of the new
Sassy
would leave her “feeling ashamed when I saw it on the newsstand. I couldn't even look at it.”
Sassy
back from the grave. After all, Lang didn't sell
Sassy
because of unpopularity or lack of loyalty from its readership. For some, the very presence of the new
Sassy
served as a nagging reminder that the glory days were over. Fan Cheryl Taruc illustrates this, saying that the mere act of catching a glimpse of the new
Sassy
would leave her “feeling ashamed when I saw it on the newsstand. I couldn't even look at it.”
Predictably, the revamped
Sassy
failed. In 1996 Petersen folded
Sassy
into now-defunct
Teen
. Petersen couldn't afford to maintain two separate teen publications with virtually the same content and identity. So
Sassy
, whose history was much less advertiser-friendly, was out. The new
Sassy
's failure was seen by former staffers and fans as a kind of victory. The ultimate irony was that
Teen
, in many ways
Sassy
's nemesis, prevailed (though not for long; the monthly edition of the print magazine soon folded).
Sassy
failed. In 1996 Petersen folded
Sassy
into now-defunct
Teen
. Petersen couldn't afford to maintain two separate teen publications with virtually the same content and identity. So
Sassy
, whose history was much less advertiser-friendly, was out. The new
Sassy
's failure was seen by former staffers and fans as a kind of victory. The ultimate irony was that
Teen
, in many ways
Sassy
's nemesis, prevailed (though not for long; the monthly edition of the print magazine soon folded).
Legacy
If magazines best represent the time in which they were created, then
Sassy
is the ultimate avatar of its era. “
Sassy
was to 1991 what
Playboy
was to its moment,” says Ann Powers.
Playboy
helped create an ideal of martini-swilling, urban men-about-town for the average American guy;
Sassy
created an equally potent image for young women. Powers surmises that
Sassy
created a “fantasy of liberation for different people. One fantasy was for fifteen-year-old girls, and another was for twenty-eight-year-old men. I don't think anything now holds that space.”
Sassy
is the ultimate avatar of its era. “
Sassy
was to 1991 what
Playboy
was to its moment,” says Ann Powers.
Playboy
helped create an ideal of martini-swilling, urban men-about-town for the average American guy;
Sassy
created an equally potent image for young women. Powers surmises that
Sassy
created a “fantasy of liberation for different people. One fantasy was for fifteen-year-old girls, and another was for twenty-eight-year-old men. I don't think anything now holds that space.”
That's why, years later, so many readers can't stop talking about
Sassy
. “It's kind of funny how cultlike
Sassy
fans can be,” says Ocean Capewell. “I remember when I was eighteen, standing in the kitchen of my first apartment with one of my roommates as she chopped Vidalia onions. She asked if I'd ever had them before. I said no, but I remembered that the girl in the sorority article in
Sassy
said she was from Vidalia, Georgia, and it was the sweet-onion capital of the world. My roommate looked at me in shock and said, âThat's what our other roommate
said! That exact sentence!'” And back issues of
Sassy
hold up surprisingly wellânot just for fans to reread, but for a new generation of teens. Capewell's teenage sister, who was five when
Sassy
folded, found her copies and has, as Capewell puts it, “become obsessed. Even though she doesn't really get the pop-culture references, she's really in love with its utter sassiness. I think it's really exciting that the message can still get out there. I mean, who cherishes copies of
Seventeen
from ten years ago?”
Sassy
. “It's kind of funny how cultlike
Sassy
fans can be,” says Ocean Capewell. “I remember when I was eighteen, standing in the kitchen of my first apartment with one of my roommates as she chopped Vidalia onions. She asked if I'd ever had them before. I said no, but I remembered that the girl in the sorority article in
Sassy
said she was from Vidalia, Georgia, and it was the sweet-onion capital of the world. My roommate looked at me in shock and said, âThat's what our other roommate
said! That exact sentence!'” And back issues of
Sassy
hold up surprisingly wellânot just for fans to reread, but for a new generation of teens. Capewell's teenage sister, who was five when
Sassy
folded, found her copies and has, as Capewell puts it, “become obsessed. Even though she doesn't really get the pop-culture references, she's really in love with its utter sassiness. I think it's really exciting that the message can still get out there. I mean, who cherishes copies of
Seventeen
from ten years ago?”
Former staffer Karen Catchpole spent four years backpacking through South Asia in the post-
Sassy
years. “I remember being in Burma, and we must have been doing introductions and talking about what we do at home. And then the lightbulb went off in this woman's head and she said, âWhat's your last name?' She went bananasâ
bananas
âto the point where I was like, âLady, this is kind of getting embarrassing.' She was like, âYou saved my life. I loved the magazine. Oh, what happened? And who killed it? And I'm really mad.'”
Sassy
years. “I remember being in Burma, and we must have been doing introductions and talking about what we do at home. And then the lightbulb went off in this woman's head and she said, âWhat's your last name?' She went bananasâ
bananas
âto the point where I was like, âLady, this is kind of getting embarrassing.' She was like, âYou saved my life. I loved the magazine. Oh, what happened? And who killed it? And I'm really mad.'”
“It's still my favorite thing, when someone comes out of the woodwork and talks about
Sassy
,” says Kim France, who was speaking at her alma mater, Oberlin, years after
Sassy
folded. She mentioned having worked at
Sassy
and said, “âI don't know how many of you guys remember or read it?' And all these hands went up.”
Sassy
,” says Kim France, who was speaking at her alma mater, Oberlin, years after
Sassy
folded. She mentioned having worked at
Sassy
and said, “âI don't know how many of you guys remember or read it?' And all these hands went up.”
There are also myriad heartbreaking stories of how
Sassy
collections lovingly amassed during the teen years were lost. Alice Tiara started crying when she found out her mother had accidentally thrown away her collectionâ“I was absolutely dumbfounded that she didn't realize how much
Sassy
had meant to meӉbut salvation came when her best friend showed up with a duffel bag full of
Sassy
s she had gotten from Craigslist. Now Alice has five years' worth of back issues organized in chronological order in her bedroom and reads them “whenever I'm feeling nostalgic for some hot nineties clothing or feminist zeal.”
Sassy
collections lovingly amassed during the teen years were lost. Alice Tiara started crying when she found out her mother had accidentally thrown away her collectionâ“I was absolutely dumbfounded that she didn't realize how much
Sassy
had meant to meӉbut salvation came when her best friend showed up with a duffel bag full of
Sassy
s she had gotten from Craigslist. Now Alice has five years' worth of back issues organized in chronological order in her bedroom and reads them “whenever I'm feeling nostalgic for some hot nineties clothing or feminist zeal.”
Some fans wanted to give the magazine a permanent place online.
Blair
, created by Richard Wang and Bryan Nunez, is a Webzine so
Sassy
-esque that it even had a “Cute Skater Alert.” It was once described as being “like
Tiger Beat
for a smarter person, but not
that
much smarter.” Their first issue, in winter 1994, eulogized the old
Sassy
. Wang had long had an email relationship with Margie, which turned into a relationship with many staff members; he went to Andrea's thirtieth birthday party and watched Christina dance to “Superfreak”âthe highlight of his night. He and Mary even bonded over whether Clark Wallabees and Ugg boots were ripe for a comeback, and she later leaked the
Sassy
celebrity issue to him. The lost issue of
Sassy
was renamed
Sissy
, not just as a tribute to the teen magazine's gay fans but also so Wang and Nunez would not get sued. In it, Chloë Sevigny posed as Edie Sedgwick, Joey Ramone went to a spa, Mayim Bialik wrote a guide on how to perform a mitzvah, and drag queen RuPaul guest edited
“Zits and Stuff.” “Now what magazine could bring all those people together?” Wang asks.
Blair
, created by Richard Wang and Bryan Nunez, is a Webzine so
Sassy
-esque that it even had a “Cute Skater Alert.” It was once described as being “like
Tiger Beat
for a smarter person, but not
that
much smarter.” Their first issue, in winter 1994, eulogized the old
Sassy
. Wang had long had an email relationship with Margie, which turned into a relationship with many staff members; he went to Andrea's thirtieth birthday party and watched Christina dance to “Superfreak”âthe highlight of his night. He and Mary even bonded over whether Clark Wallabees and Ugg boots were ripe for a comeback, and she later leaked the
Sassy
celebrity issue to him. The lost issue of
Sassy
was renamed
Sissy
, not just as a tribute to the teen magazine's gay fans but also so Wang and Nunez would not get sued. In it, Chloë Sevigny posed as Edie Sedgwick, Joey Ramone went to a spa, Mayim Bialik wrote a guide on how to perform a mitzvah, and drag queen RuPaul guest edited
“Zits and Stuff.” “Now what magazine could bring all those people together?” Wang asks.
In November 1996, Jennifer Baumgardner hired Christina to write about the last days of
Sassy
for
Ms
. “I was finally getting a sense of how important
Sassy
was to feminism,” she says. The article almost didn't happen: Jennifer remembers Marcia Gillespie,
Ms
.'s editor in chief, reading Christina's article and declaring, “We're not running it.
Sassy
's not important. Christina just sounds whiny.” Indeed, Christina's trademark exasperation is evident: “Now, this insult to the memory of
Sassy
-as-we-intended-it-to-be is dead and gone. And I'm supposed to feel ⦠what? Vindicated? Happy? Relieved? To tell you the truth, I don't feel much of anything.” Jennifer was given the order to find another writer and another topic, but she refused. “It was much better than a lot of the shit we ranâa lot more sparkling and new and feminist. A lot of the stuff we ran felt like, âWell, people should probably know this by now because they've been reading
Ms
. for the last twenty-five years.' It felt different,” she says. Gillespie finally caved. Christina's essay ran and received bagfuls of letters from
Ms
.'s younger readers, who were thrilled that Christina and
Sassy
were being name-checked in the premier feminist publication. Paying lip service to
Sassy
's death made the older Second Wave feminists at
Ms
. at least appear to understand the younger generation of Third Wavers, which was a bridge they needed to build if they were going to stay vital as these new feminists came of age.
Sassy
for
Ms
. “I was finally getting a sense of how important
Sassy
was to feminism,” she says. The article almost didn't happen: Jennifer remembers Marcia Gillespie,
Ms
.'s editor in chief, reading Christina's article and declaring, “We're not running it.
Sassy
's not important. Christina just sounds whiny.” Indeed, Christina's trademark exasperation is evident: “Now, this insult to the memory of
Sassy
-as-we-intended-it-to-be is dead and gone. And I'm supposed to feel ⦠what? Vindicated? Happy? Relieved? To tell you the truth, I don't feel much of anything.” Jennifer was given the order to find another writer and another topic, but she refused. “It was much better than a lot of the shit we ranâa lot more sparkling and new and feminist. A lot of the stuff we ran felt like, âWell, people should probably know this by now because they've been reading
Ms
. for the last twenty-five years.' It felt different,” she says. Gillespie finally caved. Christina's essay ran and received bagfuls of letters from
Ms
.'s younger readers, who were thrilled that Christina and
Sassy
were being name-checked in the premier feminist publication. Paying lip service to
Sassy
's death made the older Second Wave feminists at
Ms
. at least appear to understand the younger generation of Third Wavers, which was a bridge they needed to build if they were going to stay vital as these new feminists came of age.
“It was like what they say about the Velvet Undergroundâeveryone who listened to them started a band. Everyone who read
Sassy
started a zine,” says Rita Hao.
Sassy
's zine boosterism primed its readers for indie media. When the magazine folded, many longtime
Sassy
fans, frustrated both by how their favorite magazine was treated by mainstream publishing and by the lack of
Sassy
-like alternatives, delved deeper into the world of alternative publications. Across the country, zines were started as a grassroots response to
Sassy
's demise, and some grew to be nationally circulated publications.
Sassy
started a zine,” says Rita Hao.
Sassy
's zine boosterism primed its readers for indie media. When the magazine folded, many longtime
Sassy
fans, frustrated both by how their favorite magazine was treated by mainstream publishing and by the lack of
Sassy
-like alternatives, delved deeper into the world of alternative publications. Across the country, zines were started as a grassroots response to
Sassy
's demise, and some grew to be nationally circulated publications.
In 1993, Marcelle Karp and Debbie Stoller met as twentysomethings when both were working creative corporate jobs at Nickelodeon. They bonded over being devoted
Sassy
readers, outside of the target teen demographic, and wished that something with a similar sensibility existed for women their age. In their off-hours they began hoarding the company's office supplies so they could start a paper-and-staple zine called
Bust
. It had an open, inviting, exploratory approach to sex; was obsessed with Hello Kitty; and celebrated 1950s pinup Bettie Page. There were fun, feminist-y columns like “One Handed Read” (short erotica pieces); an entire issue devoted to gay men; and “News from a Broad,” global news coverage of women's issues. “The style and the language of
Bust
came really directly from what the girls were doing at
Sassy
,” says Karp. In fact,
Stoller and Karp became friends with Christina (“I met her because we were at a party and we were both crushing, I think, on the same guy,” says Karp).
Bust
even flirted with mainstream circulation when the Internet media company Razorfish bought it in 2000. Unlike the staff at
Sassy
, Stoller and founding creative director Laurie Henzel were able to buy back the magazine after the dot-com bubble burst and make it into a smaller-scale success.
Sassy
readers, outside of the target teen demographic, and wished that something with a similar sensibility existed for women their age. In their off-hours they began hoarding the company's office supplies so they could start a paper-and-staple zine called
Bust
. It had an open, inviting, exploratory approach to sex; was obsessed with Hello Kitty; and celebrated 1950s pinup Bettie Page. There were fun, feminist-y columns like “One Handed Read” (short erotica pieces); an entire issue devoted to gay men; and “News from a Broad,” global news coverage of women's issues. “The style and the language of
Bust
came really directly from what the girls were doing at
Sassy
,” says Karp. In fact,
Stoller and Karp became friends with Christina (“I met her because we were at a party and we were both crushing, I think, on the same guy,” says Karp).
Bust
even flirted with mainstream circulation when the Internet media company Razorfish bought it in 2000. Unlike the staff at
Sassy
, Stoller and founding creative director Laurie Henzel were able to buy back the magazine after the dot-com bubble burst and make it into a smaller-scale success.
Similarly, Chicago-based
Venus
magazine was started by avowed
Sassy
fan Amy Schroeder. “Growing up, my family moved around quite a bit and I was shy, so
Sassy
made me feel like, âHey, it's okay to be different and to challenge the norm,'” she says. “
Sassy
inspired me to daydream about one day working for a magazine and living in New York. If it weren't for
Sassy
, I'm not sure if I would have entered the publishing world.” She started
Venus Zine
while she was still in college as a venue to write about girls in music, film, and print, and it read a bit like a magazine-sized “Cute Band Alert.” After a brief stint working in publishing in New York post-graduation, she started stepping up
Venus
's publishing schedule and ultimately made it her full-time job.
Venus
magazine was started by avowed
Sassy
fan Amy Schroeder. “Growing up, my family moved around quite a bit and I was shy, so
Sassy
made me feel like, âHey, it's okay to be different and to challenge the norm,'” she says. “
Sassy
inspired me to daydream about one day working for a magazine and living in New York. If it weren't for
Sassy
, I'm not sure if I would have entered the publishing world.” She started
Venus Zine
while she was still in college as a venue to write about girls in music, film, and print, and it read a bit like a magazine-sized “Cute Band Alert.” After a brief stint working in publishing in New York post-graduation, she started stepping up
Venus
's publishing schedule and ultimately made it her full-time job.
Andi Zeisler and Lisa Jervis grew up together in New York City, and each of them interned at
Sassy
. In 1995, after graduating from Colorado College and Oberlinâtwo of the Sassiest Colleges in Americaâand shortly after
Sassy
's death, they moved to San Francisco. The connoisseurs of high and low culture spent a lot of time reading zines and staring at the television, though they weren't always happy with what they saw. “It wasn't really that productive to be complaining to each other or shouting at the TV,” says Zeisler. “There was something to be said from a feminist perspective, but we were stuck because, though we had a lot of ideas, as twenty-two-year-old retail workers we didn't have a lot of places to publish them.”
Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture
, began as a black-and-white zine printed at Kinko's with a circulation of two hundred, which would later grow to more than fifty thousand. Zeisler says that her adolescent devotion to
Sassy
was a big inspiration. “They were really foregrounding the lives of girls, and not in relation to boys or in relation to their parents. That's what we wanted to do with
Bitch
, in creating a feminist magazine that we would want to read.” Jervis says that, for her,
Sassy
was responsible for “my love of magazines and magazine conventions, the way they're put together.” Some memorable
Bitch
pieces include a love letter to
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
, a story on the rise of the word
lady
, and an investigation into the waxing and waning of men's body hair.
Sassy
. In 1995, after graduating from Colorado College and Oberlinâtwo of the Sassiest Colleges in Americaâand shortly after
Sassy
's death, they moved to San Francisco. The connoisseurs of high and low culture spent a lot of time reading zines and staring at the television, though they weren't always happy with what they saw. “It wasn't really that productive to be complaining to each other or shouting at the TV,” says Zeisler. “There was something to be said from a feminist perspective, but we were stuck because, though we had a lot of ideas, as twenty-two-year-old retail workers we didn't have a lot of places to publish them.”
Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture
, began as a black-and-white zine printed at Kinko's with a circulation of two hundred, which would later grow to more than fifty thousand. Zeisler says that her adolescent devotion to
Sassy
was a big inspiration. “They were really foregrounding the lives of girls, and not in relation to boys or in relation to their parents. That's what we wanted to do with
Bitch
, in creating a feminist magazine that we would want to read.” Jervis says that, for her,
Sassy
was responsible for “my love of magazines and magazine conventions, the way they're put together.” Some memorable
Bitch
pieces include a love letter to
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
, a story on the rise of the word
lady
, and an investigation into the waxing and waning of men's body hair.
Bitch
was one of the most vocal detractors of
Jane
magazine, the publication that should have been the most obvious heir to the
Sassy
throne. In 1997, Jane finally got the publication she had begun to work on in 1993 off the groundânot with Time, Inc., but with Fairchild, which owned
Women's Wear Daily
and
W
.
Sassy
fans could rejoiceâJane brought Christina on as the launch executive editor; Karen later held the same position.
was one of the most vocal detractors of
Jane
magazine, the publication that should have been the most obvious heir to the
Sassy
throne. In 1997, Jane finally got the publication she had begun to work on in 1993 off the groundânot with Time, Inc., but with Fairchild, which owned
Women's Wear Daily
and
W
.
Sassy
fans could rejoiceâJane brought Christina on as the launch executive editor; Karen later held the same position.
Lisa Jervis was initially thrilled at the news of a new magazine from Jane. “I thought it was going to be like
Sassy
, but for my age now. What a great antidote to that other crap,” she says, referring to the other women's magazines out there. After reading the first two issues and feeling disappointed, Jervis penned a scathing review for
Salon
. She writes, “Those of us salivating in front of the newsstand were hoping for something that took
Sassy
's early vision of self-confident girl power and critical thinking a step further. I don't know why we thought that we could expect something different, something intelligent and even mildly subversive, something really
good
, from a corporate publisher.” Like other
Sassy
readers, reared on a fantasy of liberation and DIY, Jervis was angry at being let down by Jane.
Sassy
, but for my age now. What a great antidote to that other crap,” she says, referring to the other women's magazines out there. After reading the first two issues and feeling disappointed, Jervis penned a scathing review for
Salon
. She writes, “Those of us salivating in front of the newsstand were hoping for something that took
Sassy
's early vision of self-confident girl power and critical thinking a step further. I don't know why we thought that we could expect something different, something intelligent and even mildly subversive, something really
good
, from a corporate publisher.” Like other
Sassy
readers, reared on a fantasy of liberation and DIY, Jervis was angry at being let down by Jane.
Jane and Christina were none too pleased with Jervis, whom they had specifically asked to send in story ideas for
Jane
's first issue (though none of them ended up in the magazine). The morning the
Salon
story ran, Jervis awoke to a seven a.m. phone call from Christina. “She called to yell and to suggest that I was bitter because they said no to the pitches. I was livid. I said I had read both issues cover to cover and wrote my honest opinion about them,” says Jervis.
Jane
's first issue (though none of them ended up in the magazine). The morning the
Salon
story ran, Jervis awoke to a seven a.m. phone call from Christina. “She called to yell and to suggest that I was bitter because they said no to the pitches. I was livid. I said I had read both issues cover to cover and wrote my honest opinion about them,” says Jervis.
Thus began a long-running feud between the two publications. The editors at
Bitch
retaliated by compiling an article called “10 Things I Hate About
Jane
,” which later spun off into a regular column called the “
Jane
Petty Criticism Corner,” in which the editors devoted a thousand words per issue to the failings of the glossy twentysomething magazine.
Jane
's editors soon fired back a blind item about the anger of a certain feminist editor who they claimed really wanted to write for the magazine and had been shot down.
Bitch
retaliated by compiling an article called “10 Things I Hate About
Jane
,” which later spun off into a regular column called the “
Jane
Petty Criticism Corner,” in which the editors devoted a thousand words per issue to the failings of the glossy twentysomething magazine.
Jane
's editors soon fired back a blind item about the anger of a certain feminist editor who they claimed really wanted to write for the magazine and had been shot down.
So why has
Jane
inspired so much fervor among
Sassy
devotees? According to
Bitch
: “Sad as it is, we're used to women's magazines making us feel that we're not thin or pretty enough or rich or well-heeled enough, and that's why many of us choose not to read them. But it's far worse to be smugly informed that what we're getting from
Jane
is different, when in fact the only difference lies in the pitch itself.
Jane
's snooty, preening reality is that much more painful for having the initial premiseâand Pratt's own promisesâdangled before us.” Says Jessica Nordell, “I think the spirit of
Sassy
was one of creating stuff, and the spirit of
Jane
is consuming stuff. I always finished reading
Sassy
feeling good, and finished reading
Jane
feeling bad.” Lara Zeises remembers being excited when
Jane
came out, but quickly feeling let down. “It was just
Cosmo
in a different dress. I read
Jane
and I think, âOh, God. Still working that smug superiority thing, aren't you?'”
Jane
inspired so much fervor among
Sassy
devotees? According to
Bitch
: “Sad as it is, we're used to women's magazines making us feel that we're not thin or pretty enough or rich or well-heeled enough, and that's why many of us choose not to read them. But it's far worse to be smugly informed that what we're getting from
Jane
is different, when in fact the only difference lies in the pitch itself.
Jane
's snooty, preening reality is that much more painful for having the initial premiseâand Pratt's own promisesâdangled before us.” Says Jessica Nordell, “I think the spirit of
Sassy
was one of creating stuff, and the spirit of
Jane
is consuming stuff. I always finished reading
Sassy
feeling good, and finished reading
Jane
feeling bad.” Lara Zeises remembers being excited when
Jane
came out, but quickly feeling let down. “It was just
Cosmo
in a different dress. I read
Jane
and I think, âOh, God. Still working that smug superiority thing, aren't you?'”
A lot of the ire is directed at Jane herself, who left the magazine in August 2005. She's become the Liz Phair of the publishing world, and openly embracing fame and money has made her anathema to many former fans, as has her lighter take on feminism.
The promise that
Jane
was going to arrive
just as the
Sassy
generation was coming into adulthood was seductive, as if another Jane Prattâhelmed magazine, with Christina writing a “What Now” type of column called “Dish,” could help girls navigate their grown-up lives. But maybe that's too much to expect from a magazineâeven a purportedly feminist one. Jennifer Baumgardner says she experienced the same feeling even at
Ms
. “These things that are special things for women raise your expectations so much, and then you go in there and it doesn't provide a brand-new you, and it doesn't meet all of your creative needs, and you do get shot down and you do have to make compromises,” she says. But compromise is exactly what a woman's magazine needs to do in order to surviveâas any
Sassy
staff member can attest.
Jane
was going to arrive
just as the
Sassy
generation was coming into adulthood was seductive, as if another Jane Prattâhelmed magazine, with Christina writing a “What Now” type of column called “Dish,” could help girls navigate their grown-up lives. But maybe that's too much to expect from a magazineâeven a purportedly feminist one. Jennifer Baumgardner says she experienced the same feeling even at
Ms
. “These things that are special things for women raise your expectations so much, and then you go in there and it doesn't provide a brand-new you, and it doesn't meet all of your creative needs, and you do get shot down and you do have to make compromises,” she says. But compromise is exactly what a woman's magazine needs to do in order to surviveâas any
Sassy
staff member can attest.
Surprisingly, Kim and Andrea have been looked upon more kindly by
Sassy
readers, who love
Lucky
, the popular Condé Nast magazine of which they are editor in chief and creative director, respectively. Though it's often dismissed as a glorified catalog,
Lucky
always takes a positive approach to the female figureânever disparaging or making funâand a joyful, girlfriend-y approach to shopping. There is a pleasant lack of socialites in its pages, and an absence of
Absolutely Fabu-lous
âstyle fashionspeak. The magazine is playful, not didactic, and shows a wide range of price points. Plus, there's the added bonus of the edgy-but-wearable, classic approach to fashion that Andrea is known for. Kim says she was worried about the reaction to
Lucky
among former
Sassy
readers. “Sort of like, âKim France is a sellout,'” she says. But not everyone agrees. “I think
Lucky
is really what became of
Sassy
,” says former intern and X-girl co-creator Daisy Von Furth. “It's more of a real heir than
Jane
. Its obsession with detailâa lot of that was in
Sassy
.” Even
Bitch
did a feature on their love for
Lucky
.
Sassy
readers, who love
Lucky
, the popular Condé Nast magazine of which they are editor in chief and creative director, respectively. Though it's often dismissed as a glorified catalog,
Lucky
always takes a positive approach to the female figureânever disparaging or making funâand a joyful, girlfriend-y approach to shopping. There is a pleasant lack of socialites in its pages, and an absence of
Absolutely Fabu-lous
âstyle fashionspeak. The magazine is playful, not didactic, and shows a wide range of price points. Plus, there's the added bonus of the edgy-but-wearable, classic approach to fashion that Andrea is known for. Kim says she was worried about the reaction to
Lucky
among former
Sassy
readers. “Sort of like, âKim France is a sellout,'” she says. But not everyone agrees. “I think
Lucky
is really what became of
Sassy
,” says former intern and X-girl co-creator Daisy Von Furth. “It's more of a real heir than
Jane
. Its obsession with detailâa lot of that was in
Sassy
.” Even
Bitch
did a feature on their love for
Lucky
.
Other
Sassy
staffers have spread the
Sassy
aesthetic in both obvious and subtle ways in their prominent positions at publications including
YM
and
ELLEGirl
(Christina was editor in chief of both),
Entertainment Weekly
(where Mike Flaherty, Ethan Smith, and Mary Kaye Schilling have all worked),
Shop, Etc
. (Karen Catchpole),
Spin
(Charles Aaron, Maureen Callahan), and
Modern Bride
(Mary Clarke).
Sassy
staffers have spread the
Sassy
aesthetic in both obvious and subtle ways in their prominent positions at publications including
YM
and
ELLEGirl
(Christina was editor in chief of both),
Entertainment Weekly
(where Mike Flaherty, Ethan Smith, and Mary Kaye Schilling have all worked),
Shop, Etc
. (Karen Catchpole),
Spin
(Charles Aaron, Maureen Callahan), and
Modern Bride
(Mary Clarke).
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