Dawn breaks over the concrete plains, a conference room awakening under fluorescent light.

Here, the dry season (the final days of a four-week pay cycle) has tightened its grip. Resources are dwindling. Moisture is scarce. Hunger for Tatcha The Dewy Skin Cream hangs heavily across the land.

For a moment, all is still.

But word has spread of a sudden bounty.

Vultures are circling, forming a disorderly queue, empty Prada shopping bags in tow. The air is thick with the scent of synthetic florals and coconut. The colony is salivating.

We are witnessing a rare and significant feeding event: the magazine beauty sale. Twice a year, in the depths of winter and the blaze of summer, a fashion magazine clears out its beauty cupboard and invites the entire ecosystem (the rest of the company) to fight for its spoils. $15 for YSL. $5 for Nars. $2 for Bondi Sands.

First come the lionesses and lions (staff of the host magazine). They are measured and calm, knowing they have first dibs and full control. They pick up GHD hair tools and stock up on shampoo and conditioner; in this pride, the notion of forking out for mane maintenance is unfamiliar. They carefully survey Hourglass eyebrow pencils and gilded Gucci fragrance bottles, turning to the ultra-poised leopard (beauty editor) for advice on vitamin C serums.

But a predator is in our midst. The meerkats (company executives) have pushed to the front of the feeding order, bolder than the rest. La Prairie, at full price, sits comfortably within their means, but the whiff of a saving, the promise of gain, sees all logic and decorum — already in short supply — dissolve. They swipe SK-II sheet masks for their wives, and Dior Sauvage for themselves. The lionesses’ resolve is tested.

A young antelope (editorial coordinator) is guarding the entry. She’s doe-eyed but steel-nerved, managing the hordes outside with the composure of a matriarchal elephant. A wildebeest (the advertising department’s bolshiest member) is lunging at the door; a hyena (from puzzles) is snarling that she has to get in so she can get back to her crossword.

Suddenly, the door flings open. A burst of motion. Dust (Laura Mercier Translucent Loose Setting Powder) erupts into the air. The hordes charge through.

They fly at the table, a huge trestle almost collapsing under the weight of Lancôme Genefique, Vida Glow Marine Collagen and Brazilian Bum Bum Cream. A zebra (art director) and red-billed oxpecker (sub-editor) converge on the same Ariana Grande ‘Cloud’ perfume. There is a brief, contained scuffle. Ultimately, the sub-editor yields. The art director feeds.

Strategy here is instinctive. Some species circle the prey, observing silently, waiting for weakness. Others sweep armfuls of products indiscriminately into their sacks, then retreat to a quiet corner. Crouched in the scrub, they assess their loot.

From the periphery, the gazelles (part-time, associate editor-types who’ve found their private financiers) observe. Graceful and nonchalant, they move lightly around the chaos. They do not need to squabble over Natio. They will stick to the Augustinus Bader in their bathroom cabinet.

A baboon (finance) is haggling with a deer (intern) working the register. “Why is this Maybelline mascara $3 and not $2?” IOUs are issued; many will never be settled.

Yet the transfer of funds is crucial, because the riches of this feeding frenzy will support the herd’s next mass gathering (staff Christmas party). During a drought (company-wide hiring freeze), the envelope of cash may even be pulled out to remunerate an intern-turned-junior staffer under the table.

By sundown, all that remains is a scattering of Dr Scholl’s foot cream and vulva sheet masks. Only the warthogs (a random, cross-department cohort) continue to circle, scavenging for every last morsel. Eventually they too drift back to their natural habitat, Prada bags now overflowing and ripped at the seams.

What unfolds in this urban savannah is not an exception to nature, but one of its most essential expressions. Here, survival belongs not always to the strongest, but to the swiftest and most opportunistic.

Alone, the young antelope clears away the scraps.

_______

The best things in life are free?

The perks and the pitfalls of a magazine freebie…

• Begged, Borrowed, Stolen This junior stylist used to supplement her paltry salary by calling in accessories for ‘photo shoots’ to deck out her apartment. She went on to pocket a handsome figure selling off her loot at a Sydney market, before quitting her job and leaving the country. Weeks later, it materialised that she’d gone rogue on the company credit card; turns out her real talent was creative accounting.

• Bagging Rights An editor on a serious and esteemed publication announced she was moving on “to pursue new opportunities”. But sources say she’d already pursued certain opportunities more aggressively than the company’s gift policy allowed. Particularly those involving handbag solicitation.

• Sweet Charity Many beauty editors are philanthropists of sorts, directing surplus products towards good causes. One, who took her job highly seriously, used to carefully curate donation boxes and deadpan, “Do you think the women at the shelter would prefer lip gloss or lip oil?”

  

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So while the internet analyses this week’s spectacle — unpacking the deeper meaning of post-Impressionist brushstrokes and debating whether fashion can be art without politics — we’re analysing two iconic magazine bashes head to head. Which one gets your RSVP?

Years Active

Met Gala: 1948 ($50USD/ticket, equivalent to $674USD today) to 2026 ($100,000USD/ticket).
Prix de marie claire: 2005 - 2017. Tickets were invite-only and free, if you modelled for Myer or DJs; appeared on The Bachelor or Fashion Bloggers; were Napoleon Perdis/Kate Waterhouse/Terry Biviano.

Editor-in-Chief-slash-Host

Met Gala: Thawing ice-queen Anna Wintour, who stands at the top of the Met steps to greet guests, each allotted a maximum of 20 seconds to talk to her.
Prix de marie claire: Human dynamos Jackie Frank (2005 - 2015) and Nicky Briger (2015 - 2017). Neither has ever spoken to anyone for less than 20 seconds.

Brought To You By:

Met Gala: Jeff Bezos.
Prix de marie claire: Lexus. Swarovski. Magnum. Tattinger. And a team of hyper-diligent marketing girls in black suits with swishy ponytails.

Production Values

Met Gala: Mid. Who needs theatre when guests come dressed as chandeliers, hamburgers and Veiled Vestal sculptures?
Prix de marie claire: Mega. Laser light shows; a re-creation of Versailles with 20,000 twinkling candles; a human chandelier made of models; a runway show in the roof; a fully set dinner table that dramatically dropped from the ceiling. One year, plans for a climatic explosion moment were derailed when the Tōhoku earthquake struck weeks before the event. Cue tense meetings about optics.

Fashion Faux Pas

Met Gala: Any look that turns its wearer into a soft furnishing, has additional arms, or requires 11 handlers and a quiet prayer.
Prix de marie claire: The time Jackie Frank and Kate Waterhouse turned up in the same Toni Maticevski gown. In fairness, 79% of women in attendance wore Maticevski. Alex Perry dressed the remaining 21%.

The Bathroom

Met Gala: Where guests go to take selfies.
Prix de marie claire: Where guests went to take “fruit tingles” (their words, according to a magazine staffer once tasked with wrangling celebrities for the photo wall).

Animal Sightings

Met Gala: A few select creatures have graced the Met red carpet. Security dogs; the scene-stealing cockroach of 2023; Jared Leto dressed as Karl Lagerfeld’s cat.
Prix de marie claire: Horses. On the day of the event in 2015, a cyclonic storm tore through Sydney, prompting stateside warnings to stay home. “It was hurricane winds and rain all week,” remembers one staffer. “The roof of the venue was leaking. We had horses who were going to be dressed in Swarovski bridles as part of the model showcase, but a tree fell on their farm and they got bogged in. Instead, we called every horse owner around town. I think we ended up finding out that Pirates of the Caribbean was filming and used their horses instead.” The show went on and the crystal-embellished herd won the night, though these weren’t show horses trained for the stage. One poor mare got completely spooked. Others left droppings on the runway that models had to dodge in their gumboots.

Boycotts & No-Shows:

Met Gala: Earlier this week, an anti-Bezos activist group hid hundreds of bottles of fake piss in the museum in preparation for the party, a reference to allegations that Amazon workers had to urinate in bottles to meet productivity demands.
Prix de marie claire: Designers, sub-editors, production editors, the picture desk… Oh wait, they weren’t invited. They were back in the office sending the next issue to print. Bathroom breaks were permitted, sometimes.

Overheard:

Met Gala: “I’m parched after scaling those 63 stairs in latex. Are these water bottles for us?”
Prix de marie claire: “Two awards down; 33 to go. Next up: Hand Cream of the Year.”

In 2026:

Met Gala: Rebranded as the Tech Gala, given the presence of OpenAI, Meta, Snapchat and Amazon in the room. Or as the Mar-a-Lago Gala, given the honorary co-chair Lauren Sánchez Bezos’s choice of sheeny Amazon Prime prom dress. Sorry, Schiaparelli.
Prix de marie claire: No longer with us. Though the annual honour roll of top-performing shampoos and body oils lives on via the global marie claire Prix d'Excellence de la Beauté Awards, just sans party. And the memories are forever. Slash immortalised in the the early-2010s television gem, Under The Cover.

________

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we’re working on something special.

Anonymous Tipline

Ask any self-respecting ‘mag hag’ and she’ll tell you plainly: you’re going to need someone to bring home the Bottega (even if they might sling you a branded bauble at Christmastime). Anna Wintour famously left her first husband for a Wall Street investor. Wintour’s former assistant, journalist and aristocrat Plum Sykes — who by her own admission is running an unpaid internship program for PLUs (people like us) — shacked up with the son of a mining magnate who eventually birthed the gaming juggernaut behind Candy Crush. And if you want to know what it actually takes to bankroll a career at one of Condé Nast’s Australian titles, just look at the names currently crowning the mastheads. There’s the long-time partner of a Hollywood actor, the daughter of a Perth property tycoon, and the wife of a former Morgan Stanley VP. Meanwhile, more than a decade before rumours swirled of Bezos buying Vogue as a wedding gift for LSB, it’s believed that a set of plummy Australian parents quietly acquired a small but respected indie masthead for their new daughter-in-law, and promptly installed her as Editor-in-Chief.

All of that to say: before you submit your CV, why not wander down to George Street, pull up a high chair at Ryan’s Bar and make eyes at a Macquarie banker? Even better if you can find one with a bonus package substantial enough to buy you that beautifully restored sandstone cottage in Woollahra. Because, let’s face it, editorial wit probably won’t.

_____

TDWP 2: Things only magazine people will notice

The Devil Wears Prada 2 opened this week in a frenzy of giant red pumps and Butter Birkin popcorn buckets. A note to 20th Century Studios: given the film’s eerily accurate portrayal of the publishing industry in existential crises, you could have titled it The Devil Wears Zara. And a note to our readers: below are some subtle spoilers.

• The lay-off of an entire editorial team via text may have been written for shock value, but it’s more humane than the time a bunch of staffers at one of Australia’s then-Big 3 realised they were toast because their security passes stopped working.

• The budget cuts at Runway magazine don’t appear to have reached their palatial offices. With windows. And views of the New York skyline. And a fashion closet bigger than a Brooklyn brownstone. Shouldn’t they have been shoved into the basement alongside IT by now? Or moved to a co-working space they share with a dog food brand?

• The features editor has her own office? In this economy? The editor has her own office? In this economy?

• Miranda Priestley struggling to hang up her coat, pulled up by HR for throwing it at her underlings, is one of the most delicious moments in the film. A question: does she have to make her own tea now, too?

• The ex-newspaper journo who’s editing a memoir for one of Paris Hilton’s Chihuahuas seems peeved. Kind of sounds like a top gig.

• Homeboy 1 in the “performance synthetics” and his band of gilet-wearing consultants are deeply triggering. Trumped only by Homeboy 2, the billionaire biohacker who sees Runway as another boys’ toy: something to purchase for the flex and the fun. Few prospects are more chilling for magazine people than the buyer who calls a publication their passion (i.e. vanity) project.

• “Where’s Amari? Has she been human-trafficked?” This zinger from Miranda when she can’t see her assistant could have come from the mouth of many an old-school magazine doyenne, blissfully unbothered by political correctness. The Runway editor, though, should consider herself lucky that she still has not one, but two assistants. Today, the editorial coordinator has become a ghost that haunts the halls of Australian publishers, jamming up the printer she perpetually had to fix.

• Emily may have read A Guide to Finding a Financier, above. “It’s going to be so hard to find that kind of patron again,” she sulks after her break-up. If the industry in-joke used to be “Daddy can’t afford to send me to Vogue anymore,” the new one might be, “My billionaire ex-boyfriend isn’t going to buy me Vogue anymore.”

• Nigel laments that Runway now creates content consumers scroll past while peeing. “What magazine? We’re digital, downloadable, streamable… We’re in the ether.” And yet team Runway’s unwavering commitment to art and beauty, their exacting standards, the montages of them hovering over proofs and layouts late into the night, captures the magic of working on a glossy. If you can endure the corporate terrorists, the amateur hobby buyers and the seats at the back of the plane (basically, would you survive a magazine apocalypse?), there really is nothing better.

  

  Anonymous Tipline

To the Editor,

Pardon me for mentioning it, but the Slack you sent that Christmas morning was a sadistic way to spike my cortisol before I’d even cracked into the panettone. The saddest part? For one teeny-weeny split second, as the notification pinged, I actually thought it might be a message wishing your stooges a merry day. I should’ve known better. Instead, it was a single link to a New York Times story – no context given – about Equinox launching Ozempic-friendly workouts, presumedly an idea for an upcoming feature. It’s a special kind of blasphemy to serve up caloric anxiety alongside the Christmas ham, but then again, that has always been your particular brand of genius.

- Underfed and overstimulated

_________

To the Editor,

You never liked to read much, so I’ll keep this brief. What was going through your head the time you instructed a new, senior member of the team to cut your dog’s toenails during a meeting? Was it purely practical, or some sort of perverse hazing exercise? And, be honest: did you ever put one of your overachieving editorial assistants to task on your own toes? You did always like to stomp around the office barefoot, which was kind of refreshing in an era of red-soled clackers.

- Curious, not critical

_________

To the Editor,

I think about you more than is professionally advisable.

Not in a creepy way, it’s just that the possibility of your attention has a way of rearranging things.

A “good” from you is more than a word, it’s a moment. I reread it. I screenshot it. I consider forwarding it to my family, along with my hairdresser/Pilates instructor/therapist. A “this works” can sustain my morale for a month. But a pause — perfectly neutral, possibly imagined — sends me into a spiral of anxiety and self-loathing. Let’s not even talk about a raised eyebrow.

Your validation is like the Daily Mail’s sidebar of shame: I’d like to say I’m above it, but I’m not.

So, what do you think?

- Awaiting approval

_________

A note from the publisher: Letters may be edited for brevity, clarity and style, and to make sure nobody gets sued. Dot points are fine; tributes, critiques and complaints are all welcome.

Anonymous Tipline

“A million girls would kill for this job.” So said first assistant Emily as she coolly initiated Andy into the high-stakes, high-fashion world of Runway, sharing a sentiment that’s pulsed through the industry for decades. But today in a precarious publishing landscape, magazines might kill you. What will be your fate?

If you survived: Your prize is a mandatory RSVP to a tequila brand’s foray into small-batch bourbon, bottled in faux gold bullion. Please schmooze the founder for ad money; don’t expect a company cab charge.

If you met your demise: You are free. Enjoy your new life getting paid triple your old salary for four hours’ work a week. Writing social media captions for a sea moss gummy brand can be fun, really…

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