how it all came to be

When Jet's post about how she ended up at Amayzine came online, the request from a reader came to read that from all editors. Your wish is our command, so here we go: this is how I ended up at Amayzine.

As a child, I always wanted to “work for a magazine”, just like the rest of my family. My grandfather, my mother's father, was a big magazine man (he created Story among others, something we are less proud of) and was the director of VNU, which is now called Sanoma. His daughter, my mother, chose the same path. She worked for almost every magazine and eventually realized her big dream: bringing the French ELLE to the Netherlands. The year I was born, the first issue of the Dutch ELLE also saw the light of day, and my mother remained the editor-in-chief for the first 7 years. In addition, she launched ELLE Wonen, ELLE Eten, and Santé. And yes, I like to brag about this because I am really proud of it.

Family matters

The thing is, making magazines runs in the family and is in the blood. As a child, I was always busy writing little stories and at one point I created my own magazine, the Hallo. That was a resounding success. I must have been 9 years old and typed furiously stories about all sorts of nonsense, my father printed them at his office (he was then Head of Drama at Endemol by the way and created and made Onderweg naar Morgen, Vrouwenvleugel, and Goudkust) on colored paper, which I thought was mega cool. With that big stack, I went door to door in the street and for 50 cents people could buy a Hallo, and for 10 guilders a yearly subscription. What a great deal that was because there were exactly two editions of the Hallo. But it was fun. I kept writing, and when I had to do a week of internship in the 4th year of VWO, I did it at ELLE Girl. It was during those 5 days that I really knew for sure: this is what I want, must, and will do later.

When I graduated from high school, I enrolled in the Language & Communication program at the UvA, and that was a disaster. The study was boring and dusty and I was dead bored, so after a few months, I decided this was not it. I was working at a small event agency doing PR and production, but I actually wanted to work for ELLE. At the urging of a then-love, I sent some pieces to info@elle.nl asking if I could do something for them.

There was no response. Okay, plan B. Back to the UvA.

There was no response. Okay, plan B. Back to the UvA, this time for Dutch Language & Literature. A day before my first lecture in September, I received an email from Gijsje van Bentum, the then Editor-in-Chief, that my email had been buried and whether I would still like to come by to talk about an internship. My first conversation was with Gijsje and Renske Hoff, at the editorial office. I found that very exciting because as mentioned; my mother was the first editor-in-chief and as a child, I often went with her to the editorial office. As you may know, my mother passed away in 1998, so going back to that editorial office felt a bit strange.

The dream of ELLE

The conversation took place in what is now called “the white room” and serves as a meeting room, but it was exactly that room that my mother used as an office. We chatted away and it was so incredibly fun, and I was given the task to create a trial assignment. Instead of just doing that on an A4 sheet, I made a whole mini-ELLE, completely in the same font and with the same layout. I had no Photoshop or anything, so I spent nights tinkering with it in Word until every detail was right. I wanted that internship so badly. The deadline was September 30, and I submitted it a day early, on September 29. A few hours later, I received a call from Renske that I had been accepted and that she hadn't seen such an assignment in years. September 29 is my mother's birthday; I may not be known as an emotional person, but I did get a bit emotional then.

Anyway, this story is getting way too long. Being at ELLE was a dream come true, and I worked my butt off to be the best intern ever. I was the first to arrive at the office, the last to leave, always said “yes” to everything that was asked of me, and had a lot of fun. My studies suffered enormously because ELLE always came first. I was supposed to do a three-month internship, but that turned into six, then nine, and eventually, I was there for almost a year. Unpaid, yes, but I didn't care. I got to create fantastic productions, fill pages, write articles, and even go on press trips. Renske was the best internship supervisor ever, explaining to me word for word and sentence by sentence why something was or wasn't good, and I learned so much from that. And from Cécile, who invited me and took me to events and whispered all the inside information of the profession to me.

Being at ELLE was a dream come true, and I worked my butt off to be the best intern ever.

Eventually, the moment came when I had to pay more attention to my studies and that unpaid work was no longer feasible. My internship ended, but my relationship with ELLE never did. I live close to the editorial office and almost weekly still dropped by, was close with everyone who worked there, and even helped out for three months during the summer rush a year after that internship.

And then...

But Dutch was then my main task. To earn money, I hung up coats at Café Nol (Amsterdam locals know this), stood at events for Models At Work, and worked as a freelance copywriter for everything that was loose and tight. From Etos.nl to Disaronno, and from Rob Peetoom to the Bijenkorf. And I wrote a weekly column for I Love Fashion News, which in the end earned me quite a bit. Once graduated (that took about 300 years), I was looking for a job. A real one. First, I emailed Cécile, but there were all sorts of developments at ELLE at that time, so they had no openings. Then I emailed everyone I knew in the industry with the message that I was looking.

It was she who told me: ‘You should talk to May-Britt Mobach, because she's going to do something fun.’

One of those people was Peggy Weijergang, our editor. Peggy was the first Fashion Editor at ELLE, one of my mother's best friends, and I've known her my whole life. It was she who told me: ‘You should talk to May-Britt Mobach, because she's going to do something fun.’ I didn't know May then but immediately sent her an email, to which there was no response. Because May was in the process of winding down Marie Claire, had bar duty at RTL Boulevard, and was just starting with Amayzine. Eventually, I got a response, and a conversation, which led to a second conversation. I had to create a trial assignment and then came the relieving word: whether I wanted to become an editor.

Keep in mind, Amayzine didn't exist at all yet, so I had no idea what awaited me. It turned out to be a playground, where anything was possible and the sky was the limit, with a new best friend (Jet) and the nicest colleagues one could wish for. I have no idea where Amayzine will take us all, but we are all very much into “world domination” and that is exactly how I see it. And hopefully, you all read along.