Last year beauty writer Cat Marnell told Page Six that she’d rather be “smoking angel dust with my friends and writing a book” than working at XOJane. Today, the gossip column has confirmed said book deal with publishers Simon & Schuster. Marnell confirmed the news on Twitter as well.
Gisele Bump Watch 2012: A not-visibly-pregnant Gisele posed in lingerie for the second collection of her line with Hope. {Pursuitist} Keira Knightley’s Valentino gown was pretty gorgeous at the premiere of Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World but it was her hairstyle that really got our attention. We’ve missed Keira on the Read more →
Kate Middleton, our favorite princess, braved the elements in a pair of $470 (that’s £300) leather lined wellies, paired with Zara jeans this weekend, to go camping with some kids. {Daily Mail}
Sheer, sparkly bodysuits: great in music videos, not so much live on stage as Katy Perry found out at last night’s Much Music awards. {Huffington Post}
Karl Lagerfeld, who loves a high collar, has created a leather one covered in black diamonds and one very large emerald. The price for this one-of-a-kind masterpiece? A mere $46,000, or £29,000. {Vogue UK}
The sometimes-drug-addled but always-entertaining Cat Marnell has left her position at xoJane as its Beauty and Health Editor. The news comes after several months of will-she-or-won’t-she, when Marnell was put on disability, and then strongly encouraged to go to rehab. Upon her return from treatment, Marnell wrote this post, titled “I’M BACK; I’M HAPPY; I’M NOT QUITTING MY JOB OR ANYTHING ELSE,” and many of her readers and friends (including Jane Pratt) had hopes that she would get clean. Sadly, that didn’t happen.
Pratt writes on xoJane that she and Cat “both agreed she wasn’t doing her job,” and that’s hard to argue with when Marnell says things like this, to Page Six:
“I’m always on drugs. Look, I couldn’t spend another summer meeting deadlines behind a computer at night when I could be on the rooftop of Le Bain looking for shooting stars and smoking angel dust with my friends and writing a book, which is what I’m doing next.”
Tavi’s first piece for XOJane.com is up! The 15-year-old blogger is currently working with Jane Pratt on a website geared towards people in her own age group. But, that doesn’t mean Tavi and the contents of her bag locker aren’t relevant to XOJane readers. Hence “What’s in My Bag: Locker Edition.”
Tavi may not have a Sofia Coppola X Louis Vuitton duffle full of moleskins, passports and Chanel makeup, but I wouldn’t exactly call her “What’s in my bag” piece boring. There’s some normal high school locker stuff, some really gross stuff and some really random stuff that does not make sense in a high school locker, like the blue wig she wore all over last fashion week, for instance. It was so messy, it took her well over the 20 alloted minutes to clean out at the end of the school year. In addition to the aforementioned wig, there were old tap shoes, deodorant, Play-Doh and a black lace veil.
The newly launched XOJane, Jane Pratt’s newest online venture into the lady internet space, promised to bring back a few of Sassy and Jane‘s most beloved features, including Jane‘s “Makeunder.”
They made good on their word, and today put out their first “Makeunder” featuring Tinsley Mortimer of all people. That’s Tinsley pre-makeunder above. Click through to see her after the girls at XOJane got their hands on her. It took only 15 minutes (the Tins said she spends two hours prepping for a red carpet event) and only five beauty products were used (she uses 15 before she faces the flashbulbs)–and after you see how she looks you’re gonna want every beauty product they used on her (at least I did).
We all owe a little bit to Jane Pratt. When I say “we,” I mean my generation, the generation before mine, and the generation that follows me. Growing up as a wannabe fashion writer, I admired her ingenuity and success–she was cool, she was smart, and most importantly, she made “it” happen for herself. As a reader, I appreciated her honesty. It’s undeniable, especially as a teenager, that women’s magazines in particular can make you feel less than adequate. With Sassy, then Jane, Pratt gave women a place to be themselves. Instead of dictating what you should be, Pratt’s world celebrated who you were.
From this nostalgic and unabashedly fawning intro, it’s obvious I’m a huge fan of Jane Pratt‘s. So when I was offered the chance for Pratt to walk me through XOJane.com just a day before the launch of the site, I said yes with wild enthusiasm. But I was determined not to make a decision about whether or not I liked the content until I, you know, read the content.
So yesterday I took the train up to Say Media, a company that does everything from selling online advertising to launching websites (including XOJane), to see what Pratt and co. have produced.
