Ginza magazine

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a review + a love letter

        

One of my favorite things to do in the city is to visit the salon Shizen in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I was in desperate need of a haircut and so I stopped by last week to see Junko who is fabulously talented and so cool. Shizen is a gem of a place. Not only do they have an impeccably cool and talented staff but they house an amazing selection of reading material - piles of fashion magazines and literary journals messily lined up against the wall for their clients to casually peruse or in my case rapaciously seize. It's easily something I could get hours lost into so by the time my appointment was ready after a 15-minute wait and Junko called me over, I had about 5 stacks of magazines firmly gripped in each hand as I walked over to the salon chair.  My time pouring over all their books proved rewarding as I've now discovered a new Japanese fashion magazine, Ginza, which I've since been captivated by. 

“Our world in fashion, though getting bigger in following is getting smaller in perspective”

literary journals and fashion magazine galore @ shizen

What is lovely about Ginza is that conceptually it stands wildly different from all other fashion magazines in how it digests and exhibits fashion. For the December issue, the magazine took on the theme of "Cats" and weaved these furry feline creatures to be center feature in all its story lines, editorial spreads, interviews, and articles on culture. It's a strange concept and the topic seems far and  irrelevant to the subject of fashion but the magazine so beautifully executes this theme with such originality, the end product is artful and deeply compelling.

The experience of reading through the magazine is strange but it quickly turns delightful -   Ginza treats its reader as if she is one human-sized kitty. The clothes don't take center stage but they are an accessory to these fantastical narratives that weave in and out of a cat's perspective. It's a little trippy but so gorgeously done. I studied the issue cover-to-cover several times because the content is fresh and so new and beautiful. I couldn't completely comprehend everything I was looking at. I've just never seen anything like it.  Ginza is a bold and daring publication. And thankfully Shizen has introduced me to something fresh.

Our world in fashion, though getting bigger in following is getting smaller in perspective. Most fashion magazines today have been retelling the same story for the past 10 years. The spreads are the same, the runway recaps are the same, the celebrity focused editorials are all the same. With the world becoming smaller in our increasingly digital age, it's not enough to share a photo of a beautiful dress coming down the Paris runway - the door of accessibility once closed in fashion is now wide open. That photo will be shared countless times over on Instagram and then in Vogue, Elle and Harpers Bazaar.  Tell me a story with the garment, have it be an imaginative narrative and inject a dose of fantasy  - this is what fashion must do, it must persist in the realm of fantasy. Real style is never about the garment, it's about the story of the girl or in this case, the kitty, living in the garment.

“At Ginza I’d like to present fashion as one aspect of the world to women who want to follow the latest happenings in various fields and who have an interest in topics like music, art, film and design.”
— Toshiko Nakashima, Editor-in-chief of Ginza

the Morning Routine

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Currently, my day begins with a violent blasting of Serge Gainsbourg singing "L'Anamour" as my alarm, to which I wake up, get clean, get pretty, and run out the door in an astounding 15 minutes. It seems nearly unbelievable but when you see me in the morning, it may actually be very believable. I'll be dressed in a bundle of black and might have small smears of mascara over my eyes, which I'll then artfully try to blend into a smoky cat-eye look. I'll get a coffee from the corner bodega on my way to the subway stop and am always greeted by Sergio, the cute cashier with a warm "Good morning, Deborah!" He always remembers my coffee order and serves it with a side-wink and maybe a 2-second too long lingering stare but its accompanied with a pretty charming smile so he comes off more sweet than creepy. It's a 15 minute train-commute then a 10 minute walk to the office and because I am always about 10 minutes late, I tip-toe to my desk as quietly as possible and slither straight into my seat, whispering a soft hello to my team members.

The aim with my new 2016 mornings is to actually begin my day with not just more time but more intention - to be thoughtful and have a few minutes to meditate, pray and contemplate what I hope to focus on and gracefully complete that day. I also hope to spend a little extra time being more creative in how I'm dressed. It's the little things that build into a day and how we present ourselves can tell a story of who we are and what we want. I made this pretty little infogram that charts out my ideal morning. I might not follow it to a tee but a general more languorish and drawn out morning before I leave the office is the intention here. I want a beautiful morning and I hope that 2016 is filled to the brim with them.

A New

Year,

A New

Morning.

Here is to one of my new year resolutions that I hope will have the transformative and life healing effect we optimistically anticipate all new years resolutions to delightfully unpack.

My 2016 resolution is to have a steadier, calmer and more thoughtful start to each day.

“We must always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves - otherwise we harden. ”
— Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe