From fashion blogger to magazine editor-in-chief:
15-year-old Tavi fits Rookie site around school,
dinner and bedtime
By DAISY DUMAS
Last updated at 12:29 AM on 8th September 2011
Teen sensation: Tavi's new site launched on Sunday evening and sees the youngster, seen here in July, editing with a staff of 40
Tavi Gevinson is, in many ways, your average 15-year-old girl: Fashion conscious, aware of her body and asking questions about the world surrounding her.
She's also - and this is where her life dramatically veers away from the stereotype - been hailed as 'the future of journalism' by V-magazine columnist and pop queen Lady Gaga and happens to be editor-in-chief of a brand new online magazine with a staff of around 40.
Tavi, from Oak Park, IL, shot to fame at age 12, when her wry and fresh commentary on the fashion world started turning some of the most influential designers' heads.
Her blog, Style Rookie, soon gained a global readership. Tavi's kooky aesthetic, complete with trademark geek-chic glasses, became as much a part of her brand as her witty observations of the fashion shows at which she was photographed.
Three years is a long time in the world of fashion - and teen life. Now, Tavi has come of age with the launch of her new site, Rookie Magazine, an irreverent collection of musings, features, photos and illustrations that Tavi has hand-picked 'to make the best of the beautiful pain and cringe-worthy awkwardness of being an adolescent girl.'
The site's bent is not towards fashion - it has very consciously tried not to alienate the non-fashion set and says it is certainly not about 'fitting a mold' or extracting pocket money.
'I don’t have the answers. Rookie is not your guide to Being a Teen. It is not a pamphlet on How to Be a Young Woman,' wrote Tavi in the editor's letter of this month's 'beginnings'-themed features.
Sophomore: Cookie-cutter fashion it isn't, engaging, anti-girl-magazines, irreverent and relevant it hopes to be
And the site is not trying to be anything a usual 15-year-old isn't. 'We post three times a day: roughly when school ends, when dinner starts and when it’s really late and you should be writing a paper but are Facebook stalking instead.'
The three daily postings - 'After School Special,' 'Dinner Time' and 'Sweet Dreams' - land on magazine site, which is not a highly-polished, make-up, boys and high-heels place, but a more of a home-made, honest-feeling take on the daily lives of teenagers.
Tavi's writing has won praise for its wise-beyond-its-years outlook and intelligent, thoughtful insights.
Feature topics have so far included 'Getting over girl hate' - 'encourage in the face of insecurity' - and the agony-column-style 'What's up with sex?!' that soon distances itself from the froth of more usual teen magazines with its down-to-earth parading of 'unrealistic ideals.'
Night out: Tavi was pictured at last year's Fashion's Night Out with Vogue editor, Anna Wintour
Clearly, people - teenagers, yes, but many others, too - are biting. Rookie's twitter has 2,700 followers since launching on Sunday and comments on the magazine site are generally bubbling with enthusiasm for the venture.
One, Gabby Noone, echoed many readers when she commented: 'I feel like this is going to be the best school year ever thanks to all of the advice I am getting from Rookie. You rule!'
It's all a long way from the tiny grey- (or blue, or red) haired youngster snapped at international fashion shows.
Karleidoscope: Tavi with Karl Lagerfeld at last year's Chanel's haute couture show in Paris
She has graced the cover of Pop magazine, has met Karl Laberfeld and Anna Wintour, has interviewed John Galliano. In short, has done more than many a fashonista may dream of.
One photographer told MailOnline that Tavi once wore a huge pink bow to a Dior's couture show in Paris, incurring the wrath of fashion editors sitting behind her, while another told MailOnline that the fragile girl, on the edge of puberty, resembled a granny at the Fall 2010 shows in New York - her dyed silver hair and frilly hats standing out from the crowd of blonde haired gazelles.
But in March she said on her Style Rookie blog that she is turning away from fashion, her musings expressing an unwelcome, though perhaps inevitable, lesson about fashion and adulthood:
'It’s more disappointing when the clothes aren’t very interesting. Lately I’ve been looking to other places for a creative outlet and for inspiration. I miss following magazines and obsessively checking style.com the way I used to but something is different about it now,' New York magazine reported.
'A year ago I got to go to Paris to interview John Galliano at Dior, and a couple weeks ago today he said he loved Hitler and got fired.'
According to Jezebel, Tavi said to her readers in April that she, 'like many, would like another Sassy Magazine,' referring to Sandra Yates and Jane Pratt's one-time publication.
She said the magazine, which folded before she was even born, 'was lipstick feminism for teenage girls, covering sexist issues but not discouraging having fun with makeup or caring about boys. It included R.E.M. records as opposed to the perfume scents of today's teen magazine pages.'
Rookie, at just three days old, may be poised to fill the shoes left empty by the edgy title since 1995 - indeed, Ms Pratt is listed as Rookie's 'fairy godmother' on the new site.
And, as for a role model for teenagers who may not be into Justin Bieber, Twilight or spending the day at the mall... Tavi may just be their girl.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2034528/Tavi-Gevinson-From-fashion-blogger-Rookie-magazine-editor-chief.html#ixzz1XMyEYed2
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2034528/Tavi-Gevinson-From-fashion-blogger-Rookie-magazine-editor-chief.html#ixzz1XMy3kydM
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