MegaStyles

Everybody has her demons to conquer in life. Some are obvious: drugs, alcohol, reality TV. Others are more covert: late-night Amazon.com binges, obsessive antibacterial hand lotion application, coconut hair gel dependency. For the fashion-minded, nothing can provide a sweeter fix on a Friday afternoon than a stack of fresh magazines. And nothing can produce a faster crash than a store’s stale rack of glossies. This week, MegaStyles™ focuses on identifying, accepting, and curing magazine addiction.

Denial: In the grocery checkout line, do you scan the magazine racks only to think “I can’t possibly have bought every magazine this month---there must be more down the stationary aisle.”?

Cravings: Upon checking the stationary aisle and realizing you have bought every single magazine of that month, do you buy US Weekly? Do you tell yourself “This is the last time”?

Using A More Potent, Less Refined Version Of The Substance: When you’ve torn through US Weekly, People, and InTouch for fast fixes, do you start parking yourself in Borders to look at the pictures in foreign magazines? Do you have to revisit Borders several times a week to see them all because buying them is just too damn expensive? Can you recognize the Italian word for “bias-cut?”

Irritability: Do you start counting the days until the 14^th of the month, when Lucky and Marie Claire are bound to hit the stands? Do you start checking out-of-town grocery stores and bookshops when they have not appeared by the 15^th?

Desperation: Have you ever found unpacked boxes of new magazines hidden in the corner of a store and cut the packing tape with your car keys? Have you done this repeatedly?

If you answered yes to any of the following questions, you are probably a magaholic. At least it’s not cancer.

The Cure: Get subscriptions. The price will probably approximate a monthly car payment, especially if you are subscribing to every fashion magazine currently published. However, in the long run you will actually save money and receive editions earlier than newsstands, preempting any nasty run-ins with store managers who don’t appreciate you unpacking their shipments for them.

Caution: Acute Condition: Magazine subscriptions will be no help to the severely addicted, who refuse to subscribe in case they move in the near future, reroute their subscription address, and miss issues. If you are suffering from acute magaholism, proceed directly to the fashion/beauty section of your local bookstore, where the books are bigger, more expensive, and take longer to read than magazines. These will hopefully tide you over until the next magazine shipment arrives, or until your line of credit is frozen.

Little Gems: Finally, the reality TV moguls are coming up with something worth watching.

America’s Next Top Model: “10 women, 8 weeks, 1 house,” says the network. There’s nothing better than nationally televised bitch-fights about sharing mascara and stealing laxatives.
The fun begins: Tuesday, May 20, 9pmEST on UPN.

Extreme Makeover: Only three episodes left! Will next week’s candidates choose the breast implants, nose job, liposuction, or all three at once?
The fun continues: Wednesdays, 10pmEST on ABC.

Fashion Emergency: The granddaddy of all modern-day makeover shows, featuring chubby, cherubic plus-size model Emme, and Leon Hall, Regis Philbin’s evil, but better dressed, leprechaun twin.
The fun continues: See www.stylenetwork.com for your local listings.

Allure Magazine: Recently instituted “Total Makeover,” a monthly feature following two women who get “the works” over several months: celebrity trainers, expert nutritionists, famous hairstylists, etc.

MegaStyles™ muses: Could somebody please, pleeease, get Kelly Clarkson off the cover of every magazine? For suggestions that do not involve bleach, turpentine, or mass bonfires, please email musings@megastyles.com

Make the world a better place: sign up those in need of weekly style doses at info@megastyles.com

“My grandmother and Mrs. Vreeland had similar ways of appreciating luxury because they both believed in the importance of its most essential underpinning: polish.”

                                    - Vogue editor at large Andre Leon Talley, comparing
                                    his grandmother, a maid, and his old boss,
                                    former Vogue editor in chief Diana Vreeland.