Charlotte had convinced Charlotte Street News to take us sale or return, and also Wardour Street News too, I have no idea how many of that issue we sold, but it was time for us to focus on our next edition. But we had a great time, and somehow pulled off printing a magazine, which was now in a few shops in London! If you’re wondering the secret to how we got stockists, we drove around London with Betty in our boot and CM would stop the car when we saw a newsagent, pop in and CM’s talents (amongst others) was her power of persuasion. I remember that night well, it was wet rainy December evening and I think about ten people turned up. Which was a shop in Covent Garden off Seven Dials, we swapped it for having our launch party there. We even got an ad in there, from now sadly closed Fifi Wilson. Somehow Urban Outfitters lent us a Henry Holland blouse, with the cutest ‘Hello’ buttons on them and that made the front cover. The front cover was shot in a London studio, we got a new face called Hannah May, who now lives in LA as an actress. But sat with it next to me as a I type this, bloody hell it’s quite fabulous and professional. Also our font inside the magazine WAS HUGE, and there was a few printing errors. There’s a food shoot within that issue, that we shot on a black table and it just didn’t feel very ‘Betty’. We also learned a lot about what we did and didn’t like, mainly printing dark colours on uncoated recycled paper, such as black. Firstly about our 4 times tables, magazines / newspapers have to be printed in divisions of four. The first issue was 66 pages long, and we learnt A LOT. At the time that was my holiday money and it was a very long time until I went on another one of those again, we contacted a printer in Wales and off we went. I remember we put in £300 each for the print run. A designer was found, who helped us with the logo, and layout, we worked in Charlotte’s attic during very late evenings and weekends, around our jobs and family life to get the first printed edition finished. We decided to get Betty into print, and into shops, having very limited knowledge of how this was all done. Anyway, to cut a very long story short, we decided that we wanted to do more than just do shoots together, as we had tons in common. I went to meet CM in her London home, and we did a shoot together, featuring her VW camper van, you want me to do anything, mention a 70s campervan and you have me INTERESTED. I was called CJ, and she was now CM, as having two Charlotte’s working on a magazine called Betty was beyond confusing, so shortened names it was. I was working on that digital edition of Betty when CM got in touch. I couldn’t believe it, and the reason I am telling you this, isn’t for bragging purposes, but how I came to meet my business partner of the same name, Charlotte.Ĭharlotte Melling was, and still is, an interiors stylist and Creative Director, with years of editorial experience in magazines. Somehow the lovely Lauren Laverne had started reading the Betty blog, and got me on her 6 music radio show, then mentioned Betty in her Grazia and Observer column. I started blogging again under the Betty name and working on a new issue of the magazine, that I would later release on Issuu. And whilst I was completely overwhelmed, I also started to miss the creative aspect of my uni course. Where does the name come from? My grandma, she was called Betty (shortened from Elizabeth) and at the time those older names hadn’t really been revived, it had a a bit of cheekiness, just like my grandma - and I loved it.įast forward a few months out of university, and I’d kind of forgotten about Betty for a bit, I was working in my first job at Lulu Guinness in their web team. Obviously some point before hand in, probably at midnight, I decided to opt for Betty. It’s currently sat on a shelf at my mum’s house, and I noticed in the editor’s letter when I was in there last, it had initially been called Martha. Back at university in my second year, we were asked to make a 20 page zine, which was the first incarnation of Betty.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |