Jean Godfrey-June - Free Gift with Purchase: My Improbable Career in Magazines and Makeup

Lucky

A ll predictable puns aside, I couldnt have been luckier. Why they were willing to take a chance on me, Ill never know, but Lucky certainly saved my career.

While I am glad, in retrospect, that I left Elle and tried the nightmare Internet and learned that lesson, I no longer feel that change and moving on up is necessarily always the better option. Lucky has been a relief, a challenge, and a pleasure.

My first day at Lucky, halfway through the afternoon, James Truman, Cond Nasts then editorial director, and Si Newhouse, its owner, suddenly appeared in my office. I of course took their appearance to mean something about my relative importance, but I think they were actually reviewing the office design, and mine was an example of one of the new, private-but-not-exactly-private offices.

Oh, hello, Jean, Mr. Truman said jovially. Meet Mr. Newhouse. Si, this is our new beauty director for Lucky.

They continued glancing around the room, noting wall heights and such. Now, which of the dot-coms were you working for? asked Mr. Truman. A casual and reasonable question, except for the multipage Beautyscene.com advertising spreads I suddenly remembered seeing plastered all over the September Vogue, Glamour, and Vanity Fair (all Cond Nast magazines) the previous year; they had looked fantastic. I remembered how impressed I was at how much money Beautyscene mustve had to buy all those ads.

UhumBeautyscene.com, I squeaked, trying to sound casual and upbeat.

Mr. Newhouse folded his arms and the two of them regarded me with expressions that balanced between quizzical and cold. And out they stalked.

I was amazed not to have been fired then and there. I was also, as I adjusted to my new job and began noticing the people around me, amazed to have made it through the hiring process. Everyone makes jokes about Cond Nast and its quest for physical perfection in its employees. Certainly a cursory glance at any of the lines in the Frank Gehrydesigned cafeteria (the terrazzo floors had to be reworked so as not to catch stiletto heels, to protect the fabulous from upset and injury) at lunchtime will raise suspicions that the genes for beauty and appearance-consciousness are cross-linked with those for magazine aptitude. Its sort of an all-business version of the Playboy mansion or one of those islands where James Bond and Captain Kirk are always landing, populated exclusively by beautiful and frightening women.

There are the stunningly gorgeous people, the plain pretty, the acceptably groomed (most days I manage to fit into this category), and, last, the not attractive and unacceptably groomed. Counterintuitively, you actually cut quite a swath if youre a member of the final group, because it means youre either (1) wildly talented and thus indispensable, or (2) willing to do a job everyone else hates and thus indispensable. As close to tenure as it gets at Cond Nast, anyway.

I have overheard the words Does that girl work at Vogue or Vanity Fair? (read: shes really hot) while standing in the lunch line. But getting prospective employees past the Lucky operatives involves highlighting the reverse qualifications. If Kim uses the word perfect to describe someone, its not a good sign. Shes overperfect! Kim once said of an impeccable, extremely fashiony staff member, who, incidentally, ejected herself early on. (There are plenty of superhot gals at Lucky, dont get me wrong, by perfect I mean that smug, overly groomed, tucked-and-folded-scarf thing that some pretty girls feel enhances their attractiveness.)

A Really Good Coco Chanel Quote

Are you as tired of bons mots from Mme. Chanel as I? Nonetheless, this saved my life one day as I was riding up the Cond Nast elevator and realized midascent that I was due to make a speech to the sales department in two minutes. The speech was supposed to be in response to the several copycat magazines that have emerged as Lucky has become more successful.

Cond Nast has several of those elevator televisions that flash stock quotes and weather predictions so everyone has something to look at; when theres no good news to speak of, it churns out quotes.

In order to be indispensable, you must be different, flashed the elevator TV. Brilliant, no?

At Lucky, the usual fashion magazine pecking order is all out of whack. Most notably, the fashion department is not mean. Theyre not constantly firing one another and sniping at non-fashion-department members in the hallways. Temper tantrums are rare. Screaming is rare, and cowering is rare. Everyone (the whole staff, not just the fashion department) generally gets along.

Its why people like the magazine, I think, in the end. Its about having your own style and appreciating your friends styles. One of the most popular pages is Four Girls, One[circle skirt or pair of stiletto boots or some such], where four real girls show what theyd wear a particular item with. The interesting part is how different they areas it is in real life.

When youre leafing through just about any other magazine, you come to a fashion story, and you look at the model, and maybe shes too skinny or she looks nothing like you, or whatever. You look at the clothes, and maybe you hate the way theyre styled, or youd never wear that, or theyre too expensive. If any of these things is the case, you move on to the next story, because theres nothing there for you. Lucky is less about the model and more about the many options on the page facing her. The options are there for