When Should One Abandon Teen Magazines?

Continuing from my ramblings on my teen magazine years (see yesterday's post), today I wonder whether it is time that I abandon them.

I'm not a teenager anymore -I'm in my last year of college now. For the past few years, I've been feeling that I was too old for Teen Vogue. The girls featured inside the magazines, whether they are the 'normal' girls or the celebrities, are starting to seem really young, some around 13 to 16 years old. I'm really starting to feel the generation gap! The articles about the 'issues of the month' are still relevant sometimes, but they're short and don't provide much info most of the time. Plus they tend to relate the 'issue' to celebrities and not talk much about the actual issue. Also, for reasons I have yet to figure out, I don't like the styling of the editorials as much as before. For example, there was an editorial this year in which all the outfits just looked like adaptations of the Balenciaga FW07 outfits. I mean, I know Balenciaga is leading the trends this year, but couldn't the editorial have more variety apart from skinny jeans with blazers and a scarf?

But even with all this, I still buy Teen Vogue. Why? Because while I'm not a teenager anymore, I'm still at school so it means that I still dress really casually. Plus unless the reader was seriously mature and city slick, most teenagers probably don't dress the way people are dressed inside Teen Vogue until the reader is in college, (where she'll be exposed to more people and style.)

Before anyone suggests Nylon, the style inside Nylon is starting to feel a bit too young and hip for me too. I know Nylon is meant to be for readers from mid-teens to their twenties but still. I mean, I can't imagine that after graduation, I'll have much chance to wear such cool casual outfits. Sigh, but I do love their melanchony, nerdy-chic looking fashion editorials.

So when do you think one should stop/ did you stop buying teen magazines?

My Teen Magazine Years

I first discovered teen magazines when I was around 14 years old. (Yes I've always been a bit slow.) Back then, my main choices available were TeenMag, Seventeen and Cosmogirl, plus Australian 'zines, Dolly and Girlfriend. A lot of them seemed to be about cute boy bands, boy problems, embarassing stories (remember those?) and simple quizes. Seventeen was slightly better as it seemed to acknowledge their girls had some brains. (On a kind-of-related note, my love for saving money meant that I would only buy one each month or even none.) Later on, ElleGirl came along. I liked ElleGirl much more than the others -it was fun, colourful and had a casual style. But the truth was, I've never loved any of them. Sure, I would take ElleGirl over the rest, but still, none of the magazines had the style (fashion and layout-wise) that I was looking for.

That is until Teen Vogue came along. Teen Vogue was the closest to my ideal teen magazine that I have ever seen. It had seriously stylish clothes and the editorials were styled well. The covers were pretty and the cover girls were usually girls whom I liked the style of. I mean, you know those editorials where there is the 'celebrity's way of wearing it' and 'our way of wearing it'? I've always thought Teen Vogue's copying of said celebrity's ways of dressing was classier than other magazines' ways and actually looked quite similar to the celebrity's outfits. And yes, its small size made it cute, and convenient to buy and carry around.

Even the topics that the editorials talked about were somewhat interesting and relevant, (although they were seriously short and kind of superficial). One of the few things I didn't like about Teen Vogue were the annual 'Hollywood issue' and 'Music issue', but I still liked the fashion in these issues more than what I see elsewhere. Oops, I think I've been blabbering too much about how much I loved Teen Vogue. While I think Teen Vogue is certainly not perfect, it really is my favourite teen magazine out there.

What was your teen magazine years like? Which magazines did you like and buy?

Image credits: http://www.kirstenimages.com/

Yves Saint Laurent Dies at 71

We'll remember him for modernising womenswear by revolutionising pants and the tuxedo.

RIP