Mercur’s 2014: we were there

When I arrived at the office this morning it was, pardon my French, a huge bloody mess. Empty bottles of Veuve Clicquot on my desk, mascaras lying everywhere, pantyhose, rejected dresses and eliminated clutches. It was obvious, woman had been here getting ready for an evening of dresses and heels. The entire Amayzine Team went to the Mercur Awards yesterday because we were nominated in the category Launch of the Year, and that begs for a good heel and sexy outfit. The report.

We were not that nervous, being nominated in the same category as Harper’s Bazaar seemed a foretold conclusion, but there was an air of unrest the whole day. Josselin, Jet and I went off to our girlfriends at The Building for party-hair, several dresses were hanging ready to choose from and at 5pm the bottles were uncorked to raise a toast to the Amayzine.com team on our nomination, which felt like victory to us. Because the Mercur Awards is for magazines, a print party, and Amayzine is the first digital title to ever have been nominated in this category.

 Josselin, Jet and I went off to our girlfriends at The Building for party-hair, several dresses were hanging ready to choose from and at 5pm the bottles were uncorked to raise a toast to the Amayzine.com team on our nomination, which felt like victory to us.

We were the ugly duckling in the farm, the ‘intruder’, as was said multiple times during the evening. It’s a sensitive subject in media-land, with print under fire as online wins more terrain. The whole business needs to move with the times, but how? There we sat, online just over a year, between the editorial teams of iconic magazines like Harper’s Bazaar, ELLE, Vogue, LINDA and Esquire. That felt pretty special I can tell you.

We went with 10 people, because although you usually read the articles written by Josselin, May, Jet, Peggy and me, there are so many other people behind the scenes that make Amayzine what it is. Our amazing site builder Robin for instance, who sat between the girls for the first few months and who now knows more than the average man does about Chanel bags and Prada shoes. Or Lucia, the very best art director in the country and who is responsible for the look of the site. And Danielle, our sales director, who makes sure that Amayzine is a successful business that earns a profit. And let me not forget our amazing interns Maud, Lisa, Felice and Yvette, who run around like crazy and deliver great work. If we could, we would offer them all a job.

We went with 10 people, because although you usually read the articles written by Josselin, May, Jet, Peggy and me, there are so many other people behind the scenes that make Amayzine what it is.

The evening was presented by Jan Jaap van der Wal, who I have always liked but is now higher in my favourite men list. While everyone sat dining together at long tables, the awards were handed out, Bazaar won Launch of the Year, Flow is Magazine of the Year and Thomas Hendriks from Quest may call himself Editor-in-Chief of the Year. Once all statues were handed out, we hit the dance floor with Valentijn de Hingh and Geza Weisz keeping us dancing till the wee hours. We did a line dance with Cécile Narinx, high fived with Hilmar Mulder and Jet ended having an intense dance with Piet Paris.

It was around 2am when I finally lay in bed, with quite a lot of wine in me. Print or online, one thing is for sure, parties organised by magazines are always the most fun. And we’ll be standing on that stage next year, just watch.