LITTLE LILIANS GROW UP

And now she is an editor

I don't need an intern, sorry. And definitely not one who wants to do a research internship. I emailed a certain Lilian Brijl about that. We need hands at Amayzine, not advice. That sounds incredibly snobbish, but especially in the attic phase we were in at that moment, the last thing I was waiting for was an intern who was researching things. We were surviving. Building a brand. Evaluating and contemplating, that would come later.

Then the phone rang. Lilian Brijl. She hoped she wasn't disturbing, but she really wanted to do an internship at Amayzine, so she just called me. She had already consulted with her education and if she could spend one day a week on her research during ‘our time’, she would use the other days on the weekend and could provide us with ‘hands’ four days a week. To make it extra attractive, she offered to come work for the whole month of August. Free of charge. Her internship would only start in September, but she just came.

“By the way, did I mention it's on one condition, Lil?”

To top it off, she was the niece of Liana Wijtsma, one of my best interns ever, and she had created a project that was so beautiful it could go to the museum.

You understand, we all adjusted a bit and Lilian joined our desk block. And she never left.

She moved with us to our real, own office at Pilotenstraat 23. Graduated, then came to replace the designer during the summer vacation and then didn't leave again.

A bit trembling, she came to tell me that she had seen ‘a pretty nice vacancy’ at another magazine. But that she of course preferred to stay with team Amayzine. I immediately appointed her as shopping editor. In that role, we style some people who occasionally appear on TV, she creates the coolest shopping features on Amayzine, and on weekends she does the design again.

It was time for a new step. I thought. She's too great not to become it. With pride, joy, happiness, sparkles, and barks (Lilian is the chairwoman of the dog fan club) I present our newest editor: Lilian Brijl!

By the way, did I mention it's on one condition, Lil? That is that you stay until your retirement.