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When marie claire stopped publishing last year, I sort of felt lost. Like how-the-heck-do-I-survive-the-stress kind of lost.  marie claire had been somewhat of a reward for a hard day’s work. I felt good reading it from cover to cover. Every day until the next issue arrived. Without it, I felt like I had nothing left to do but work the grind. Of course, there were other forms of literature but I normally need long vacations to enjoy those. Being a professor by day, an academic Assistant Director by mid-day and a PhD student by night, I almost lived like a hermit. My relaxation is composed of 15 minutes of casual video gaming or a short anime or a quick read.

Preview Magazine rescued me.  With its bold, fresh look and its no-nonsense take on fashion, I was hooked.  While they did not go into social issues with much detail like marie claire did, they focused well on the other fields that interested me. One of them is the arts.  I’m not the fashionista that my sister is and I can’t even imagine wearing half the clothes that are strewn all over its pages…but Preview knew art and embraced it well.  In fact, they came up with Preview Art, their 150th issue, last year and it featured the works of the country’s prized visual artists.

This 15th anniversary ish is still packed with articles. They featured Outerspace Gallery, where some of our students from the Asia Pacific College held their exhibits last April, and Vargas Museum, the pride and gem of UP Diliman graduates (it’s right across the Faculty Center, where I took two of my elective classes). Personally, I love what Vargas’ new curator, Patrick Flores (I’m a huge fan), did to revitalize the gallery.  You’ll also find write-ups about multidisciplinary artist Justin Samonte, Model/Photographer Jo Ann Bitagcol, and writer Neil Gaiman.  There is so much more to read, especially for fashion and beauty enthusiasts (the kikay stuff call out to me).  I’m also happy that for this anniversary issue, they finally put beauty and substance on the cover in the form of Georgina Wilson. Last year, I purposely did not buy their 14th anniversary issue because it had such a disappointing cover. This year, I voraciously read EVERYTHING — especially the cover article, which is also a tribute to the late Alexander McQueen. Yay for beauty with substance!

What I love best about Preview is the art direction. From the styling, to the photography, to the layout, to the write-ups…they just can’t lose. I think I told them this before and my letter got published in one of their issues. (I’m just not sure if that was one of those that won Letter of the Month…gotta dig that up and scan it.)

Written: 06.07.10