Keeping it real: Indigo Magazine

After all my crossness about the way magazines are selling us fake and distorted images of women to make us feel bad about our selves, here’s a breath of fresh editorial air. A new independent magazine for Australian teenage girls has been launched and you’ve probably never heard about it. I hadn’t until I read about it  (ironically – on an overseas site) and went in search of more information.
Sadly, the mag doesn’t yet have a website but a story about it in The Age recently said…

“From the cover of Indigo magazine a 15-year-old girl
looks back happily over her shoulder. Her brown hair is pulled
casually off her make-up-free face. There’s no Veronicas-style pout
or Paris Hilton-esque come-hither look. She’s not a celebrity and
her image hasn’t been manipulated.

Welcome to the new face of teen magazines. Indigo, a
magazine started by a group of women in Victoria last year and
headed by Barwon Heads mother Leanne Koster, emphasises real girls
and their achievements, not celebrities and fashion.

The most recent issue included images of everyday girls and
their stories, interviews with successful young women, pieces about
the environment as well as creative activity ideas.

The philosophy behind the magazine? “When girls flick through
the pages of the mag, they can see themselves,” editor Freya
Holland says.

The launch of Indigo came in a year when teen mags
stopped simply being hot property in schools and became the subject
of intense public scrutiny.“

The article continues….

“There is a strict no-airbrushing
policy at the magazine and the pages are filled with “flaws” we
rarely see in other products.

Indigo came about precisely because the women who founded
it were worried about the effect mainstream magazines were having
on their young daughters.

“It was close to my heart in terms of making a difference for
young girls,” executive editor Natalia Morelli says. “I was seeing
my daughter, Molly, in an environment where she’s exposed to a lot
of stimuli all at once and judging herself based on that. I felt it
was really important to give her something that gave her choice and
really empowered her.”

The approach has earned Indigo a place on bookshelves in
more than 450 schools and the support of eating disorder support
network The Butterfly Foundation. The foundation’s general manager,
Julie Thomson, says she welcomes the shift towards more socially
conscious media for teens.

“It is inaccurate to say the media causes people to develop
eating disorders but what we do know is that the media can
contribute to young people at times feeling insecure and the more
insecure people are about their bodies and appearances, the more
likely they are to have low self-esteem and then to do things like
go on dangerous diets,” she says.”

I assume the magazine is available at newsagents and I believe hundreds of schools are stocking an issue in their libraries. I wish the publishers and editorial staff every success.

It’s a smart and brave thing to do…times are unspeakably tough for even the biggest teen titles – they’re closing all over the world and moving online or just disappearing altogether. Teenage girls and young women are deserting magazines in the hundreds of thousands. Perhaps because they have not changed their formula or visual presentation since….well, pretty much ever.
It’s a hugely expensive and risky endevour to launch and publish a magazine. I salute what Indigo is trying to do and hope it works.

I only wish there were more alternatives for women who love magazines but are disillusioned and dismayed by the messages and images of ourselves they insist on feeding us.