Sassy//

Whilst reading up on teen blogging sensation Tavi Gevinson, I came across one of her most recent posts on an American vintage teen mag, Sassy. She's obviously quite obsessed with the magazine and has fans send her back copies so that she can get to read them, and after looking at her post, I can see why.

For it's time (1988-94), and particularly for its teen audience, Sassy had quite an abruptly opinionated and somewhat grown up tone of voice, although this may have been something to do with its founder being feminist Jane Pratt. It featured some influential people, for example Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love, and Pratt is credited for spotting Chloe Sevigny.

In this article, they've mixed up the lives and characteristics to compare Hillary Clinton with Courtney Love. This is quite a strong statement for a teen magazine to make about the President's wife and the turbulent partner of a drug fuelled rock star, and is a perfect example of the kind of content that Sassy covered.

Perhaps my favourite part of Tavi's post was her analysing this front cover.

Whilst it looks like any other American teen mag, Tavi took a photo of the caption that sits just at the bottom of the page.

I love the use of irony here, and although this probably isn't something we want to take on board for our magazine - I thought it was worth mentioning a publication that mocked the usual system. The full post on Sassy by Style Rookie is available here.

Nic.