Bonjour from Paris! 

I’m at the halfway point of my epic European summer adventure. I got to Paris last night after a magical first few stops - northern England for Mel & Louis’ wedding (!!!), then A Coruña, Spain, for a very magical few days with my beloved Daniela (who brought the new Brightsiding vision to life last year!). 

I’ll be recapping my travels soon, so look out for that, but in the meantime - I’m still knee-deep in reflection on personal style after the last Brightside. In fact, I recorded a whole podcast episode expanding my last newsletter, which is very funny and vulnerable if I say so myself.

That reflection, combined with some recent (and pretty deep) inner child work, got me thinking about just how early my affinity for style began. So today, I’m peeling back the curtain a little further … and sharing, as always, an incredibly niche anecdote loaded with meaning and subtext!!!

Enjoy! I’d love to hear your early personal style memories if you have them.  

XO, Bogs

The Impossible Influence of a Vogue from 2007

Last March, after a weekend in Miami, I was settling back into my apartment with my favorite Thai takeout and an episode of Big Little Lies when my doorbell rang. No one ever rings my doorbell, and I was a little alarmed at first, wondering if I’d forgotten about plans with a friend or if it was maintenance making sure I’d installed the missing fire alarms after a recent inspection (I did, thank you). I was exhausted and chose to ignore it. They only rang once, so it couldn’t have been urgent.

Before bed that night, I opened the door to see if the mystery ring was perhaps a package. 

At my feet was a bright pink bubble envelope with my name scribbled on a post-it. I was confused but excited; what was this surprise treat?!  

I picked it up and locked the door, heading to my well-lit kitchen to investigate further. I hadn’t given anyone my address recently, and I didn’t think it was a gift from any of my friends. I weighed the package in my hand - it was heavy. Dense. Did I pre-order someone’s book or something? 

I gently tore the adhesive strip from the mailer, and as I slid out the thick inner item, wrapped once more in a plastic bag for protection, I finally remembered my most recent impulse purchase … The 2007 September Issue of Vogue. 

The week prior, I’d been in a very rainy Toronto for work and spent my downtime writing the piece about my king-sized daydream. That had sparked a memory of a specific issue of Vogue that I’d treasured as a kid, so I hopped on eBay to see if I could track it down.

Within minutes, I’d found my old faithful and smiled at Sienna Miller’s cover shot. Without batting an eye, I entered my credit card information and paid top dollar for a copy in near-mint condition. I forgot all about it as I headed straight from Toronto to my whirlwind Miami weekend. 

I found a note resting on top of the magazine as I examined her with the reverence of Nick Cage handling the Declaration of Independence. Along with a $10 bill from the person I’d purchased from on eBay, she explained that when she saw my address, she realized we lived quite close and decided to drop the package off in person instead of subjecting it’s valuable contents to the US postal system.

Rediscovering Vogue in the bright overhead light of my kitchen was surreal. That magazine was more to me than just a magazine—and it was revered by my 12-year-old self, unlike much of the other content I quickly tossed aside back then.

Let’s time-travel back to that era, shall we? It was 2007, and my mom was running for public office in our small town. I didn’t know it was possible to increase the time my brother & I already spent tagging along with her in the car… and still, during this stretch, if I wasn’t at school or figure skating practice, we were dutifully by her side, doing whatever a woman running for office was doing. Canvassing, I guess? I wasn’t paying attention; I was reading my Vogue. 

Not Teen Vogue, not Cosmo, VOGUE VOGUE. 

I adored the glossy fashion, the models (anyone else remember Caroline Trentini???), the Kate Spade & Juicy Couture ads printed on thicker stock than the rest of the magazine, and especially the pair of shoes featured for the conclusive “last look.” My September Issue was like gasoline being poured on the fire of my already overactive imagination. 

I don’t even remember how I got my hands on it - my dad must have indulged my request at Barnes & Noble one day. By then, I was fully attuned to the glamour of the mid-2000s magazine industry thanks to 13 Going on 30 (2004) and Devil Wear’s Prada (2006), so I can imagine my young self begging for a copy so I could “participate.” It didn’t matter how I got it, though - all that mattered was that it was mine.

And girl, let me tell you, I took that damn Vogue with me everywhere - in the car, to school, to my mom’s campaign events, even to the dinner table.

I remember one of my mom’s more “alternative” friends coming over one night and scolding me for flipping through the magazine, telling me I should be reading more “nourishing literature.” I rolled my eyes, took the magazine up to my room, and carried on. 

That 2007 September Vogue remained my steadfast companion for the next few years until I was swept up in the excitement of heading off to boarding school. Before my freshman year started, I had to fill out a questionnaire about my interests to be matched with an “older sister” in my new dorm. Naturally, I scribbled, “reading fashion magazines.” This secured me the great fortune of being matched with arguably the coolest junior on campus, Dola Delano, whom I still admire from a distance to this day. 

When I was back home on school breaks, I’d revisit my sacred text, and eventually, I ceremoniously desecrated it for a junior or senior year mood board. (I’ve ALWAYS had a huge bulletin board in my bedrooms over the years with a constant rotation of celebrity crushes, fashion inspiration, college pennants and “inspiring quotes”, etc.) 

The carcass of that original 2007 September Issue must have been tossed in a cleaning spree when I was in college, but for years and years, I honored it like a rare natural resource. 

I’d forgotten about the frenetic impulse buy of my long-lost treasure after the excitement of the subsequent weekend in Miami to cure last year’s winter blues. But as I flipped through the 840 pages of “Fearless Fashion,” I teared up. Not because of the particularly moving content (although it is an INSANE time capsule of the aughts), but because of its transporting abilities to connect me back to my younger self, who flipped through those same pages from my rural childhood bedroom and dreamed of a bigger life. 

Magazines continue to have an enormous impact on me as an adult - Casa Mags and Soho Iconic Magazines have become as sacred as church to me in recent years. I find myself wandering their small aisles in all sorts of moods, especially pensive ones, looking for signs or sometimes just visiting the bodega cats that maintain the equilibrium of New York City. Sometimes, I’ll slip an anonymous community love note into a copy of Monocle and try to imagine its recipient, hoping if they, too, wandered in looking for magic, I could be the one to share it with them.

Magazines make my world bigger and give me something to participate in. I've never followed a sporting event in my life, but in May, when Zendaya graced both the US and British Vogue covers, I ran out immediately to get both copies. In April, when a writer I fell in love with for her Gossip Girl outfit breakdowns profiled the inimitable Nicole Kidman for Elle, I couldn’t get my hands on it soon enough. You get the idea.

The magazines I worship now expand far beyond the industrial machine that is Vogue, and let me tell you: they litter my entire apartment. I don’t even want to know the amount of money I’ve dropped over the years on all sorts of publications big and small. My favorites today are Tidal (I help out with their online edition!), The Gentlewoman, Gossamer, Interview (I’m OBSESSED), and Apartamento, although the list is truly endless.

As I edit this piece from Paris, I’d say to that 12-year-old girl: babe, we’ve got that bigger life, and it’s just getting started. The 2007 September Issue of Vogue that I impulsively copped last year is now right back where it belongs, on my bedside table in New York. It reminds me never to forget my younger self … and, more importantly … to keep breathing fire into my daydreams.

I saw a very chic girl carrying around this bag in Paris last night, and I COVETTTTT. Very outside my budget right now, but … a girl can dream 🙂