We all come to university with grand ideas of what we want to become when we leave. For some of us, the path is pretty set – become an accountant, an engineer, a doctor or a teacher.
We all come to university with grand ideas of what we want to become when we leave. For some of us, the path is pretty set – become an accountant, an engineer, a doctor or a teacher.
For some of us, our degrees only serve as a tenuous guide which, instead of setting us fi rmly on the path to professionalism, create even more confusion than choosing to get that qualifi cation in the fi rst place.
I recently met with my fi rst year journalism tutorial class for the fi rst time. Looking around at the 18 eager and optimistic, if somewhat naïve, faces made me long for the days when I thought the world was mine for the taking.
When I believed that I could be anything I wanted to be, and when I knew exactly what that was. As part of the tutorial exercise the group had to write down what job they wanted to have when they graduated from university and entered the professional world.
They then had to go around the African Media Matrix and fi nd quotes that either affi rmed or negated their choice.
Imagine my surprise when out of a class of 18, six students had written down that they wanted to become a fashion journalist, or the editor of a fashion magazine like Glamour or Elle.
I sat there silently mocking their future aspirations. Here are six obviously bright students who were going to turn their backs on a world rife with economic inequality, war, genocide, and a dozen other human rights abuses for a world of couture, makeup, and, quite frankly, an industry which itself perpetuates many of the dozens of human rights abuses taking place today.
oitried to surreptitiously steer them off the path of frivolity which they seemed so set upon, by telling them that after four years of a university education they will be exposed to so much of the world that (hopefully) what they want to do now will probably change 10 times over by the time they actually get a degree and have to worry about procuring a job.
Well, it just so happened that I ended up watching the documentary on US Vogue editor Anna Wintour, The September Issue straight after this very tutorial.
Anyone who knows me will tell you that this was by no means an unpleasant task – I love fashion as much as the next 22-year-old female, I just don’t want to make it my career.
The September Issue gives one a glimpse into the seldom-seen interior world of the fashion magazine industry.
The documentary follows Anna Wintour and her team as they prepare for the launch of their biggest issue to date September 2007.
One cannot help but admire the stalwart of the runway. She has carved out a niche for herself in the fashion industry, and has been described as the most powerful and infl uential person in the $300 billion fashion industry.
What struck me the most about Wintour was that at the age of 16 she wrote down on a job application form that she wanted to be editor of Vogue one day and from then on every career move she made was executed with that goal in mind.
This made me think about those young women in my tutorial group. War and genocide are commonplace in this world, but, when you think about it, they are also rife within the fashion magazine industry.
Editors are constantly at war over what to feature in each issue, and photoshoots are planned, and expertly executed, only to be culled and left dying on the newsroom fl oor at the last minute. It’s the same evil, but this time it’s wearing Christian Lacroix.
