Marie Claire, May 1998

[00:00:01] Are you crushing it at work but can't get a man? Do you feel bad about your neck? Have

[00:00:08] you been searching for the perfect pink lipstick? Well, step this way.

[00:00:16] Hello and welcome to Mag Hags, the podcast for high-flying spinsters. I'm Franki Cookney.

[00:00:23] And I'm Lucy Douglas. Together we're diving into the glossy archives of women's magazines

[00:00:28] to find out what's still hot and what's definitely not.

[00:00:31] All right, Lucy, how are you doing this week? I'm good. I'm still buzzing from our fabulous

[00:00:40] foray into 1980s Tatler. Yeah, I know what you mean. I do genuinely feel like we went on a weird

[00:00:46] sort of holiday. Yeah, truly another world. Indeed. Indeed. Well, I'm pleased to say we are coming

[00:00:54] back down to earth a bit with this week's episode. A far more recent era and a slightly more relatable

[00:01:01] vibe, I would say. Ah, yes. Am I right in thinking that we are back in the 90s for this one?

[00:01:08] We are back in the 90s and we have got some fantastic features lined up. We'll be hearing

[00:01:14] about what it's like to smash the glass ceiling but still find yourself on the shelf.

[00:01:20] Ha ha, yes. Extremely 90s.

[00:01:22] And we've got a fantastic report on the trend for cosmetic surgery package holidays. And then a little

[00:01:29] bit later, we'll be joined by journalist Lottie Jeffs to talk about lesbian stereotypes and how

[00:01:34] magazine coverage of LGBTQ stories moved the needle on gay rights.

[00:01:39] Wow, what an issue.

[00:01:41] What an issue. What an episode. Should we get stuck in?

[00:01:46] Let's do it.

[00:01:48] This week, we are looking at a magazine very close to my heart and not because I've ever written for

[00:01:55] it, actually, but because it was my favourite as a teenager. It's Marie Claire. The year is 1998.

[00:02:03] The month is May. Our biggest news stories of the year so far. Number one, absolutely massive piece

[00:02:11] of history. The Good Friday Agreement was signed in April, which ended three decades of the Troubles

[00:02:16] and brought peace to Northern Ireland.

[00:02:18] Oh, wow. Yeah, that is huge.

[00:02:19] This one's kind of interesting. In February 1998, a study was published in The Lancet,

[00:02:26] the medical journal, by someone called Andrew Wakefield. I wonder if you know what that was.

[00:02:32] Oh, my God. I know exactly what that study was.

[00:02:36] Do you?

[00:02:37] Yeah, I do. I know that because my mother, who, as you know, is a doctor, still to this day,

[00:02:44] will mention the name Andrew Wakefield and then curse him in the way that I imagine old Catholic

[00:02:50] Irish women curse the devil.

[00:02:53] Wow. Okay, so the study that Andrew Wakefield authored was the now infamous one that claimed

[00:02:59] a link between the MMR vaccine and autism.

[00:03:01] Yeah.

[00:03:02] But I have to say that in May 1998, the story that probably loomed largest in popular culture,

[00:03:09] and certainly in our teenage brains at the time, was the President Clinton and Monica Lewinsky

[00:03:15] sex scandal.

[00:03:17] Oh, my God. Yeah. He did not have sexual relations with that woman.

[00:03:22] Music-wise, it was a pretty good year. You would have been listening to Ayers Moon Safari,

[00:03:27] Massive Attack Mezzanine, and The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill on your CD player.

[00:03:32] Possibly even on minidisc.

[00:03:34] Possibly even on minidisc.

[00:03:37] On telly in 1998, in the UK, we might have been watching Cold Feet and Goodness Gracious

[00:03:43] Me, which started that year.

[00:03:44] Absolute classics.

[00:03:45] Coming over from the US, we had Dawson's Creek. Friends were still going strong. But the most

[00:03:52] important American import of 1998 was, of course, Lucy, can you finish the sentence?

[00:03:58] Obviously. It's the seminal millennial Gen X work for women. It's Sex and the City.

[00:04:07] It is Sex and the City. In the cinema, 1998 is the year that we had not one but two asteroid

[00:04:14] movies, Armageddon and Deep Impact. Why did that happen? Nobody knows. We also had Saving

[00:04:20] Private Ryan. There's something about Mary, The Faculty, and not one of the higher grossing

[00:04:25] films of the year, but an important one in my personal canon, and I believe yours as well,

[00:04:29] Lucy, Practical Magic.

[00:04:31] Yes, what a film! Anyway, the two most important films of the year, however, and the ones that are

[00:04:38] going to provide the segue into talking about this week's issue, are Sliding Doors and Shakespeare

[00:04:44] in Love. What is the common denominator here, Lucy?

[00:04:47] Oh, it must be our dear lady, Gwyneth Paltrow.

[00:04:51] Gwyneth Paltrow! Gwyneth is on the cover of May 1998 issue of Marie Claire. She's smiling,

[00:04:59] she's looking fresh, she's rocking her little Sliding Doors blonde crop.

[00:05:05] Very 1998.

[00:05:06] A haircut that would now be considered quite Karen-y.

[00:05:09] True. Although I think that's part of the Karen brand though, isn't it? Like they just stopped

[00:05:14] evolving their style in 1998.

[00:05:16] Yeah, I think you're right. And actually, there are a lot of haircuts like this in this

[00:05:20] issue of Marie Claire. Anyway, Gwyneth is a delight and she doesn't know it yet,

[00:05:24] but in about eight months' time, she's going to win the Best Actress Oscar for Shakespeare in Love.

[00:05:28] Oh, she's also just broken up with Brad Pitt about a year before.

[00:05:32] And as I recall, she didn't talk about the split for quite a while afterwards. So I think there

[00:05:38] still would have been quite a lot of curiosity around that at this point.

[00:05:41] Yeah, bloody hell, imagine winning an Oscar as part of your revenge glow up.

[00:05:48] However, Lucy, when I tell you, I combed through the pages of this issue to find the interview,

[00:05:56] the feature, even a gossip column about Gwyneth Paltrow. Mate, she's not in the mag.

[00:06:02] What, nothing?

[00:06:04] So two of her films, Sliding Doors and Great Expectations are reviewed on the film page,

[00:06:09] but they're just like little 200 word film reviews. But other than that, there is absolutely

[00:06:14] no reason for her to be on the cover.

[00:06:15] Wow. So that's fascinating for several reasons, but partly because of all the magazines that we've

[00:06:23] looked at for this so far, this is our first celebrity cover. Up until now, it's just been,

[00:06:30] we've just had models on the covers. And as we've been researching this series, one of the things I

[00:06:37] like clocked, but haven't really sort of mentioned as yet was celebrity covers and the big celebrity

[00:06:43] interviews, like definitely seem to be way more of a 21st century thing than a 20th century thing.

[00:06:50] And I guess that kind of speaks to like an increased sophistication of like the Hollywood PR machine

[00:06:56] and not just Hollywood, but probably just PR more generally. These days you often get a celebrity

[00:07:02] interview off the back of a brand deal that they've got, you know, they've become an ambassador for

[00:07:08] a makeup line or a skincare line or something like that.

[00:07:11] Right.

[00:07:11] So yeah, so now it just seems mad to me that we've got this Hollywood darling on the cover

[00:07:16] and there's no chat. Like I've written in my notes, like why is there no Gwyneth reveals all

[00:07:23] or like a little soundbite quote or anything on the cover?

[00:07:27] Gwyneth breaks her silence on Brad.

[00:07:29] Yeah, exactly. So there's like nothing to sell in like what you're getting,

[00:07:33] but then that's apparently because there's no interview with her at all.

[00:07:38] Nope. Nope. It's just completely gratuitous.

[00:07:42] It's fascinating.

[00:07:44] Gratuitous Gwyneth. There is one feature, a section called Who's in the News?

[00:07:50] And they do 24 hours with Hugh Fernley-Whittenstall, which I mean,

[00:07:55] not quite up there with Gwyneth Paltrow, but sure, we'll take it.

[00:08:01] Still, shall we have a look at what is on the cover?

[00:08:05] Yes, please.

[00:08:07] British women lured into Europe's sex trade.

[00:08:10] I went on holiday to change my identity.

[00:08:14] Poor little rich girls, when money can't buy you love.

[00:08:19] Living with lesbian parents.

[00:08:22] And then we've got fashion's all time great buys.

[00:08:26] Buys is so magaziney, isn't it?

[00:08:29] Like in what other context would you describe your shopping as buys?

[00:08:32] Yeah.

[00:08:35] 101 ideas, some as best looks at the most affordable prices.

[00:08:39] And then right down in the bottom left-hand corner,

[00:08:42] you've got a little 20% off at the pier.

[00:08:45] That's a pretty juicy selection of cover lines we've got.

[00:08:48] Indeed. Are you ready to dig in?

[00:08:50] I'm ready. Let's go.

[00:08:54] Poor little rich girls.

[00:08:56] They're wealthy, successful and attractive.

[00:08:58] So why does a relationship elude them?

[00:09:01] Five women reveal why money can't buy them love.

[00:09:05] Before anything else, I wanted to point out that the premise of this piece is not just

[00:09:09] why are these women single, but it's why are these wealthy women single?

[00:09:13] The purpose of this is not just talking about like why it's hard to meet a man,

[00:09:17] but examining why it's hard to meet a man when you are a wealthy woman,

[00:09:22] which feels very 1998 to me.

[00:09:24] And it's also, so it's not just wealthy either, is it?

[00:09:28] I sort of feel like the unsaid bit here is that you're professionally successful.

[00:09:34] So you're wealthy because you have earned a lot of money and you have quite a high-flowing career.

[00:09:41] And it's that sort of combo of those two things that seems to be the barrier,

[00:09:44] which, like you say, feels very of its time.

[00:09:47] Yeah, I mean, obviously that's not to say like men in 2024 have no baggage around money and being the higher owner.

[00:09:55] Like that definitely still exists.

[00:09:57] But I think when you look at 90s feminism, I was reading some research earlier

[00:10:01] and there was a report in 1995 that showed that gaps between men, women in education

[00:10:06] have essentially disappeared at this point.

[00:10:08] And as we discussed when we looked at new women, we're at the girl power end of the 90s.

[00:10:12] And so we already said that Sex with City had just launched.

[00:10:16] And I think the message to women at this point in time was very much like,

[00:10:20] you can do anything.

[00:10:22] You can be anything.

[00:10:23] Like you've won.

[00:10:25] You know?

[00:10:26] Yeah.

[00:10:27] Like men and women are equal.

[00:10:29] Feminism?

[00:10:30] Completed it, mate.

[00:10:32] Yeah.

[00:10:34] I definitely sort of remember this portrayal of like single women in their 30s

[00:10:39] who were absolutely crushing it at work was quite big in pop culture at the time.

[00:10:44] Like you've mentioned Sex and City already and like Miranda and Samantha specifically

[00:10:49] were like really kind of embodied that.

[00:10:52] But more than anything, when I was reading this feature,

[00:10:54] I felt like it was really giving Ally McBeal.

[00:10:56] Oh my God.

[00:10:57] Yeah.

[00:10:58] That was the one it like reminded me of the most.

[00:11:00] Such a good shout.

[00:11:02] Do you want to meet our poor little rich girls?

[00:11:05] I definitely do.

[00:11:06] Before I introduce them, I'm just going to say up top that £100 in 1998 is worth £220

[00:11:13] today.

[00:11:14] So for the purposes of this feature, any numbers I mentioned,

[00:11:18] you can basically double it and add a bit.

[00:11:19] Does that work?

[00:11:20] Yeah.

[00:11:21] Cool.

[00:11:21] Double it plus a bit.

[00:11:22] First up, we have Sarah.

[00:11:25] Sarah Cracknell.

[00:11:26] She's 32 and she's the lead singer of St Etienne.

[00:11:29] Remember St Etienne?

[00:11:31] Vaguely.

[00:11:31] I mean, fair enough because actually St Etienne's Real Peak was quite a bit earlier in the 90s,

[00:11:36] but they had some bangers, really great tracks.

[00:11:39] So it's no wonder that lead singer Sarah is making £80,000 a year.

[00:11:43] Okay.

[00:11:44] Then we've got Deborah.

[00:11:45] She's 32.

[00:11:46] She describes herself as a former city high flyer who's now a TV presenter.

[00:11:51] Then we've got Beverly Bloom, 23, a socialite.

[00:11:55] Basically, her job is being the daughter of a millionaire.

[00:11:58] So then we've got Lucy, 32, a headhunter.

[00:12:02] She makes £80,000 to £100,000 a year.

[00:12:04] And finally, we've got Fiona, 34, who runs a designer fashion business worth £1 million.

[00:12:10] I mean, we don't have any sense of what her income is from that.

[00:12:13] We just know what her business is worth.

[00:12:14] But anyway, she's clearly doing well.

[00:12:16] Okay.

[00:12:17] So before we really get into it, I have a bone to pick with these women and this feature as a whole.

[00:12:23] Is it their haircuts?

[00:12:25] No, I'm actually kind of fine with their hair.

[00:12:27] I think they look good.

[00:12:29] They all look like Monica in series three of Friends, which, you know, that was the custom at the time.

[00:12:37] No, that's not my issue.

[00:12:39] The real issue with these women is that they've barely been single.

[00:12:42] Oh my God, I know.

[00:12:45] Yeah.

[00:12:45] Okay, so apparently a toxic trait of mine is that I feel very gatekeepy about being single.

[00:12:51] And I just don't think that you get to complain about it until you've been single for like a minimum of two years.

[00:12:57] Okay.

[00:12:58] Okay.

[00:12:59] That's my threshold.

[00:13:00] That's my threshold.

[00:13:01] And some of these bitches have only been single for like six or nine months.

[00:13:07] That doesn't count.

[00:13:08] No, fair.

[00:13:09] I think that you're a just and fair dictator.

[00:13:14] So as we sort of touched on already, like, immediately this feature feels to me very, we're living in a period of sustained economic growth, you know?

[00:13:24] Oh, yeah.

[00:13:25] Yeah.

[00:13:32] Yeah.

[00:13:34] I definitely, and I'm thinking back to reading these magazines at the time.

[00:13:38] I definitely got the sense that like, being financially successful and getting ahead in your career were things that I could definitely look forward to.

[00:13:47] Oh, my God.

[00:13:48] 100%.

[00:13:49] I would say that like, of all the lies that Sex and the City sold me about life in my 30s, one of the most egregious was that by my early 30s, I would be economically capable of living by myself in a cool global megacity and like sustaining a very expensive addiction to designer fashion.

[00:14:09] Yeah.

[00:14:10] Yeah.

[00:14:10] And I got here and I was like, what the hell?

[00:14:14] Yeah.

[00:14:15] Also, I just think this feature would feel so distasteful now.

[00:14:19] So distasteful.

[00:14:20] Oh, my God.

[00:14:21] I just, I really can't imagine a world in which should be like, oh, poor me, I'm earning 200 grand a year and I can't find a man.

[00:14:28] Well, she'd be on Raya.

[00:14:30] That's true.

[00:14:31] So who was your favourite poor little rich girl?

[00:14:34] My favourite poor little rich girl was Deborah, the one who is zipping about town in her Porsche.

[00:14:42] Okay.

[00:14:43] So she's the one who, she was working in the city.

[00:14:46] She worked her way up to be the head trader at an investment bank.

[00:14:51] So like already, I'm scared of her.

[00:14:54] And then she decides to pivot to do something different.

[00:14:58] And she goes to work for CNBC, which is like a Bloomberg-y type news channel.

[00:15:02] It's like a sort of business news channel.

[00:15:04] As a presenter.

[00:15:05] And she, she lives in Chelsea.

[00:15:08] She owns a Porsche that she's bought herself.

[00:15:11] And she just all round seems terrifying.

[00:15:15] Like I'm not surprised men find her intimidating.

[00:15:17] I think people just generally would find her intimidating.

[00:15:21] Yeah.

[00:15:21] I think my favourite was Lucy.

[00:15:24] Lucy's the headhunter with an executive search consultancy in London.

[00:15:28] Her story begins,

[00:15:45] Which is an interesting take.

[00:15:48] I mean, that might be true for her, but I'm not really sure about the message that's sending.

[00:15:52] I guess it's hard, isn't it?

[00:15:56] You know, we don't exist in a vacuum.

[00:15:58] And I guess if for like so long, women were sold the idea that making a good marriage, in inverted commas,

[00:16:05] like marrying somebody with a reliable income, was your route to economic security.

[00:16:11] And I guess that does get internalised and maybe like affects your choices, whether you consciously believe it or not.

[00:16:18] And I think in this context, it's like she's thinking, well, I earn a lot of money myself.

[00:16:24] So...

[00:16:24] That don't impress a me much.

[00:16:27] Yeah.

[00:16:27] Oh my God.

[00:16:28] Are we, are we in the, is this the year of Shania Twain?

[00:16:32] Is this the year...

[00:16:32] Hang on.

[00:16:33] Let's check.

[00:16:33] Let's check.

[00:16:34] No, it was 97.

[00:16:36] 97.

[00:16:37] Okay.

[00:16:37] So we're hot.

[00:16:37] We're hot on the heels of Shania Twain being unimpressed.

[00:16:41] Yeah.

[00:16:42] We are hot off the heels of Shania Twain.

[00:16:45] Yeah.

[00:16:46] And Lucy, the headhunter from London, is definitely unimpressed.

[00:16:50] But I think you're right.

[00:16:52] And it does seem like, certainly from these stories, that a lot of these women are grappling with being kind of at this turning point of like,

[00:17:00] nobody, none of them really believe in like the old rules around dating anymore, but they are still there.

[00:17:07] Lucy says at some point in her interview,

[00:17:09] I was asked out for dinner a few months ago and I booked the restaurant and assumed I'd be paying.

[00:17:14] I was taken aback that he'd made a reservation at a different restaurant.

[00:17:18] I mean, I do think there's something a little bit weird about that.

[00:17:21] Like, did you not just communicate about it?

[00:17:24] Yeah, I know.

[00:17:25] I really love that bit.

[00:17:26] Like, we're both so busy, like being the alpha and being in charge that we both booked a restaurant for the other one.

[00:17:33] And just, I mean, really, we could have completely avoided this cock up by having a simple conversation, guys.

[00:17:41] Just get on the phone.

[00:17:42] I know.

[00:17:42] What do we think it is that the men being talked about here are actually scared off by?

[00:17:47] Is it as simple as the money or is it something a little bit subtler than that?

[00:17:51] I think a generous reading would be that for however long women have got to find their economic security in marriage.

[00:18:00] And then the flip side of that coin is that for men, there's a tremendous amount of pressure to be the provider.

[00:18:06] And I guess that's probably something that is back of mind or even forefront of mind for a lot of men at a certain point in their lives.

[00:18:14] And so the idea that the women that you might settle down with is used to such a high level of earning and income and associated lifestyle,

[00:18:23] that might feel just like a really enormous amount of pressure to be able to live up to.

[00:18:29] What's the ungenerous reading?

[00:18:31] Well, I mean, it's that toxic masculinity, isn't it?

[00:18:34] It's not a pleasant thing to think about men.

[00:18:36] And I definitely don't think all men think like this.

[00:18:38] But there are, and there certainly would have been at the time, men who just didn't like the idea of their partner earning more than them.

[00:18:47] That's kind of the underlying premise of the feature, isn't it?

[00:18:49] Because it doesn't openly ask this question, but it is sort of covertly saying,

[00:18:53] are men still emasculated by the idea of a female breadwinner?

[00:18:57] Yeah. And I think if we're honest, in 1998, probably quite a lot of them are.

[00:19:02] So there's a writer called Alison Yarrow who wrote a book about 90s culture and feminism.

[00:19:06] And she refers to a phenomenon she calls bitchification, which is where any time a woman is seen to have power, status, visibility, money.

[00:19:17] Society finds a way to discredit her or to undermine her or to frame her as a bitch.

[00:19:22] And I mean, that was such a big part of the Clinton and Lewinsky scandal, right?

[00:19:26] And the media around it.

[00:19:28] So that's kind of her theory.

[00:19:30] And I guess I wonder if there's some element of that coming in, like women this successful can't possibly also be desirable.

[00:19:38] Yeah, potentially.

[00:19:39] I think also it's really telling what these women do for a living.

[00:19:44] So the ones that we've spoken about are in like corporate professional office jobs, like banking, recruitment, sales.

[00:19:53] And one of them in particular, I think it's Deborah, describes herself as saying that she likes banter, like she likes to be one of the lads.

[00:20:04] She likes to have a laugh with the lads.

[00:20:06] Yeah, that feels on point for 1998.

[00:20:08] Yeah, yeah, it does.

[00:20:10] And I would imagine that that would be very brash, like laddie type of corporate environment.

[00:20:16] Like it must be if she was a trader.

[00:20:19] And like reading between the lines a little bit of this feature, we've got a couple of women who have got where they are by being one of the boys.

[00:20:29] And I would imagine that's quite a hard line to tread in 1998, like being one of the boys at work and then feeling like you have to sort of contort yourself into something else or some sort of like feminine ideal in order to date.

[00:20:44] Precisely.

[00:20:44] Yeah.

[00:20:45] As the gatekeeper of what constitutes singleness, by your own admission, how do you feel?

[00:20:52] How do you feel like the kind of narrative around being single has changed?

[00:20:56] Like what kind of features do you reckon we'd see now?

[00:20:59] Let's say if you can imagine something that's sort of case study based feature about being single, what would you reckon the headline would be?

[00:21:06] I mean, it wouldn't just be something like these women are single and have good careers.

[00:21:11] There would have to be some other hook or angle for it.

[00:21:14] So now it would be something like these five women in their 30s.

[00:21:19] Tell us why they've given up dating app.

[00:21:20] Yeah, I was just thinking it was going to be about giving up dating apps.

[00:21:24] Yeah.

[00:21:24] It certainly wouldn't be remarkable that women in their 30s might be single.

[00:21:30] I do actually think that the narrative around being a single woman has shifted in the last sort of 10 years or so, because I think for so long there's this sort of quest to have like loads of empowering features about like how being single is fine.

[00:21:46] Being single is great, actually.

[00:21:47] You can like spend time getting to know yourself and you can do all these great things.

[00:21:53] It's almost the same as we've seen with the body positivity stuff.

[00:21:56] There was for a long time such a positive kind of narrative being posed in women's mags about being single that it didn't leave any room for allowing people to say, would I actually quite like to meet somebody?

[00:22:10] Yeah.

[00:22:11] Yeah.

[00:22:12] Sometimes I don't want to be empowered.

[00:22:14] Sometimes I just want to cuddle.

[00:22:17] Frankie, don't pile on the makeup.

[00:22:20] Less is more.

[00:22:21] Sorry, who are you?

[00:22:22] I'm Louise Conta, makeup artist on The English Patient.

[00:22:26] Oh, cool.

[00:22:28] Can you make me look like Kristin Scott Thomas?

[00:22:30] No, but I can offer you Max Factor's new three-in-one foundation.

[00:22:35] Is that what Kristin wore in the film?

[00:22:37] It covers like a foundation, conceals where you need it and transforms to a soft powder finish.

[00:22:42] Hmm, I don't know.

[00:22:44] Sounds a bit heavy for the desert.

[00:22:46] Who's going to the desert?

[00:22:47] Kristin Scott Thomas and Ralph Fiennes, but I don't know if he wore foundation.

[00:22:52] Did he wear foundation?

[00:22:53] Could someone call my agent?

[00:22:55] I'm actually more of a Naveen Andrews girl myself.

[00:22:58] Oh my God, can you make me look like Juliette Binoche?

[00:23:00] Absolutely not.

[00:23:02] So much for Max Factor.

[00:23:04] The makeup of makeup artists.

[00:23:08] Frankie, help!

[00:23:09] I've got a date with Jamie from marketing and I've got terrible blocked pores.

[00:23:14] You and your dates?

[00:23:15] Wait, which one's Jamie again?

[00:23:17] He looks like Goran Visnitch.

[00:23:19] Shit.

[00:23:20] I know.

[00:23:21] What am I going to do about these blackheads?

[00:23:23] Babe, I've got you.

[00:23:24] Try one of these Bure Pore Perfect strips, but don't be surprised if you're left feeling shocked.

[00:23:30] Shocked?

[00:23:31] Yes, but don't worry, this is to be expected.

[00:23:34] You see, it acts like a magnet on clogged pores.

[00:23:38] Revolutionary.

[00:23:39] I know.

[00:23:40] Simply moisten your nose and apply the strip for 10 minutes.

[00:23:43] When you remove it, it'll pull out dirt, makeup and even blackheads.

[00:23:47] Genius!

[00:23:48] Quite.

[00:23:49] And all those nasties in your skin will be on the strip instead of blocking your pores.

[00:23:53] Yuck.

[00:23:54] Positively.

[00:23:55] My skin does need a short, sharp shock.

[00:23:58] With Bure on your side, you'll be in Jamie's pants in no time.

[00:24:01] Does the ad actually say that?

[00:24:05] You'll be in Jamie's pants in no time?

[00:24:07] No, it doesn't.

[00:24:08] That was just me.

[00:24:10] I have to say, as usual with these adverts, when we write the script, the majority of the

[00:24:16] copy is taken from the advert and then we turn it into a dialogue.

[00:24:19] But there is always a bit of artistic license.

[00:24:21] And I have to be really honest, there was no mention of getting into Jamie's pants.

[00:24:25] I just felt like that was the most likely scenario for a young Lucy in 1998.

[00:24:33] You're taking liberties.

[00:24:34] I am.

[00:24:35] But all the stuff about like revolutionary genius, yuck, that was all Bure.

[00:24:45] I was brought up by lesbian mothers.

[00:24:47] From the age of eight, when her mother's lesbian lover moved into their home, Nikki O'Reilly

[00:24:52] was brought up by two mothers.

[00:24:54] This is a first person feature, as told to a journalist called Rosalind Powell.

[00:25:00] So this was on the front cover, as you'll have noticed.

[00:25:04] And I wanted to talk about this because this felt like a pretty, a pretty bold, exciting

[00:25:11] choice by Marie Claire to run a feature like this.

[00:25:14] Yeah, I really loved this feature.

[00:25:17] Like it felt so warm and positive.

[00:25:21] When I saw that cover line, living with lesbian parents, I was kind of bracing myself for something

[00:25:28] like a bit sensationalist.

[00:25:30] And it's not that at all.

[00:25:32] So, you know, her parents split up.

[00:25:35] She had a single mum for a while.

[00:25:36] And then after a few years, her mum meets a woman who she falls in love with.

[00:25:40] And she essentially gets a stepmum.

[00:25:42] Although obviously it's 1998.

[00:25:44] So we're a long way off equal marriage at this point.

[00:25:47] And, you know, even civil partnerships won't be introduced till 2005.

[00:25:51] But still.

[00:25:52] And even her resistance to her mum's new relationship at first, when she's describing it, it just

[00:25:58] sounds like, it sounds like the very normal reaction of a child whose parents have just

[00:26:05] split up and her mum's moved a new partner in.

[00:26:08] And the fact that her mum's new partner happens to be a woman and not a man is almost completely,

[00:26:13] like it's irrelevant.

[00:26:15] She writes,

[00:26:16] I was eight when I first met Lois.

[00:26:18] That's her mum's partner.

[00:26:19] I thought her house was amazing because she had a cat, Floyd, who I loved.

[00:26:24] Yeah, I really love that bit.

[00:26:25] I mean, that's so eight years old, isn't it?

[00:26:27] Like, that's what you notice when you're eight.

[00:26:29] Like, oh, you've got a cat?

[00:26:30] Cool.

[00:26:30] Yeah, yeah.

[00:26:31] Tick.

[00:26:32] You're in.

[00:26:32] When my mum asked what I thought about the possibility of Lois living with us, my immediate

[00:26:37] reaction was, does that mean Floyd's coming too?

[00:26:39] I obviously wasn't too bothered.

[00:26:41] When she first moved in, I gave her a bit of a hard time.

[00:26:44] I was jealous and used to having mum to myself.

[00:26:47] And like you say, that feels like something that would happen with any partner.

[00:26:50] Like, that's just blended families.

[00:26:52] It's like, it's such a universal experience, isn't it?

[00:26:55] Yeah, for sure.

[00:26:55] So before we kind of get properly into it, I'm just going to give a bit of historical

[00:26:59] context.

[00:27:00] So the UK in 1998 had a law called Section 28, which prohibited local authorities from,

[00:27:07] in inverted commas, promoting homosexuality.

[00:27:10] So services provided by local authorities include things like leisure centres, libraries

[00:27:15] and crucially, schools.

[00:27:17] That law came in in 1988.

[00:27:19] It was introduced by Margaret Thatcher's government and it was in effect until 2003.

[00:27:24] So for anyone growing up and going to school in the 90s, there was no mention whatsoever of

[00:27:29] any kind of homosexuality or any kind of queer identity because promoting could kind of mean

[00:27:35] anything.

[00:27:36] So in effect, teachers were prohibited.

[00:27:39] I mean, like they were at risk of losing their jobs if they talked about this stuff, if they

[00:27:43] talked about like queer families educated around LGBTQ issues, including sexual health, and it

[00:27:49] crucially left them unable to challenge homophobia.

[00:27:52] So that's one of the reasons why it feels like a really important feature for young adults to

[00:27:56] be reading in 1998.

[00:27:58] So my perspective on this was coming from a bit of a place of ignorance, really.

[00:28:04] Like I don't identify as LGBTQ.

[00:28:08] So Section 28 wasn't something that negatively impacted me directly.

[00:28:13] So I was kind of oblivious to it until I was an adult and learned about it.

[00:28:18] And really, you know, it's only been kind of looking back and thinking about what those

[00:28:23] experiences must have been like for friends of mine who do identify as LGBT.

[00:28:28] Yeah, I mean, in many ways, same.

[00:28:30] I mean, I didn't come out as bi until I was in my 20s.

[00:28:33] And I think that if I think probably if you were more aware of your sexual orientation at

[00:28:37] that age, it would have been a different experience.

[00:28:39] But regardless, I actually think that for most people, it wasn't really until adulthood that

[00:28:45] we were kind of able to piece together the impact that Section 28 had.

[00:28:49] And I don't actually think that's anything to do with being straight or gay.

[00:28:52] I think that's just to do with being a child.

[00:28:54] But you do make a good point.

[00:28:56] And as I say, I was not somebody who identified as LGBTQ in the 90s.

[00:29:00] And so I wanted to have a chat with somebody who would have a different insight.

[00:29:04] So I got in touch with journalist Lottie Jeffs.

[00:29:09] She is an Urswell magazine editor.

[00:29:12] She worked on the Evening Standard magazine.

[00:29:14] She was the deputy editor of Elle and then acting editor-in-chief.

[00:29:18] From there, she went into advertising.

[00:29:20] And most recently, she is the author of a picture book, a novel and two nonfiction books,

[00:29:26] one of which is called The Queer Parent, in which she shares her perspective as a lesbian mum.

[00:29:32] Would you like to hear our chat?

[00:29:34] Yes, please.

[00:29:36] How old were you in 1998?

[00:29:38] I was 16.

[00:29:40] I was definitely reading magazines and probably reading Diva magazine,

[00:29:46] which was and still is the UK's main queer women, lesbian publication.

[00:29:53] I remember buying it for the first time in a corner shop,

[00:29:57] and it was always on the top shelf with the porn magazines.

[00:30:01] And I definitely remember sort of hiding it under my bed or hiding it in my bedroom.

[00:30:05] Not that I think I was out to my parents anyway,

[00:30:08] but I think I was just a bit sort of ashamed or embarrassed.

[00:30:12] Yeah.

[00:30:12] I mean, if they put a magazine on the top shelf, that is sending a message, isn't it?

[00:30:16] How do you, when you look back at the 90s, the late 90s,

[00:30:19] how do you feel like this piece fits into that wider cultural context

[00:30:22] and what was going on in the media at the time?

[00:30:24] Well, if you think about it, lesbian mums were still very rare and very shocking in a way.

[00:30:34] Children were being taken away from their lesbian mums up until the 90s in social services cases

[00:30:42] where a heterosexual couple had separated because the woman was gay,

[00:30:50] and it was deemed that the child should live with the father.

[00:30:54] And in some cases, the mother losing all parental rights to the child.

[00:30:59] Wow.

[00:31:00] So I think it was quite radical.

[00:31:02] I probably would have flicked through this piece.

[00:31:05] I think for me at that age, I just didn't care about old lesbians.

[00:31:12] I was like a 16-year-old, like lesbian mums, forget about it, boring.

[00:31:18] I wanted to know about like hot girls that I could pull.

[00:31:22] I was just like a basic horny young queer, like I didn't care.

[00:31:26] That's totally fair.

[00:31:27] And I suppose actually that it makes even more sense then

[00:31:32] why it is told from the point of view of the daughter.

[00:31:35] The young woman who's the sort of first person narrator in this, Nikki,

[00:31:39] is about 23, 24 at the time of writing.

[00:31:43] Because I think one of the things I felt when I read it was like,

[00:31:46] it's a bit weird to hear it from her point of view and not theirs.

[00:31:49] But obviously, that's the version of the story that would have been most relatable

[00:31:53] to readers of the magazine at the time.

[00:31:56] Yes.

[00:31:56] And I actually like that angle on it.

[00:31:58] I think it's interesting to find out what it was like for her to have two mums

[00:32:04] rather than what it's like to be a mum and be a lesbian.

[00:32:08] I think that's a good editorial decision.

[00:32:12] I think Marie Claire was quite a radical magazine, wasn't it, in those days?

[00:32:15] As I said, you know, children of lesbian mums were being removed from them

[00:32:21] and they were losing parental rights.

[00:32:23] So to have a piece which is essentially quite positive, you know, it's not salacious.

[00:32:29] It's not saying I was so damaged by my upbringing.

[00:32:33] It's a really well-balanced, nice young woman talking about essentially like how much she loved

[00:32:40] her mums and the good times she had growing up.

[00:32:44] And it goes to show that a lot of the women at the helm of these magazines were actually open-minded

[00:32:51] and, you know, deep thinkers and interesting, intellectual, politically aware people.

[00:32:59] It doesn't surprise me that they ran this piece.

[00:33:03] But I do think it was, I mean, brave is maybe overstating it, but it was certainly like,

[00:33:08] for want of a better word, it was just cool of them to have done it.

[00:33:11] I think there's something quite reassuring about what you were saying about how, you know,

[00:33:17] the people working at Marie Claire in the late 90s would have been interested in being part of social progress

[00:33:24] because I think so often when we look back at those periods, we kind of dump on it.

[00:33:29] Gen Z is sort of looking back on Y2K and looking back on the 90s.

[00:33:31] And I think there's so much negativity around it.

[00:33:34] People say, oh, the 90s was such a toxic time, such bad messaging around this,

[00:33:38] such bad messaging around that.

[00:33:39] And it's not that that's untrue, but I also think there definitely were people doing positive things.

[00:33:46] And as you just said, you know, there were lots of people making these really bold,

[00:33:51] creative decisions to try and kind of get interesting conversations going

[00:33:55] and not propagate the sort of more toxic messaging, if you like.

[00:33:59] Totally. I totally agree.

[00:34:00] Did you like this piece? Did you enjoy it?

[00:34:03] Honestly, reading it now, like, it's quite quaint.

[00:34:09] Yeah.

[00:34:10] Almost.

[00:34:11] Yeah.

[00:34:11] It's like, it's written at a time when it was sort of such a curiosity.

[00:34:16] The questions we would ask now, and I actually, in my book, The Queer Parent, the questions we did ask,

[00:34:22] you know, we went a lot deeper.

[00:34:23] And there's so much more you could ask.

[00:34:26] I mean, day to day, what it was like at the school gates with friends, you know, negotiating relationships.

[00:34:34] They do touch on all of those things, but they do it in quite a sort of, yeah, quaint kind of way.

[00:34:40] Like, it's enough of a curiosity that they exist at all.

[00:34:44] It's not really saying anything particularly revelatory.

[00:34:47] I mean, the thing that I think they almost like went there with, but didn't, was when they obviously asked about her parents' sex life.

[00:34:58] And there's a bit where it's like, I don't hear my parents having sex or something.

[00:35:02] It was kind of weird that they would ask.

[00:35:05] It's almost like this idea that because they're lesbians, they're therefore sort of more like sexualized and up for grabs.

[00:35:13] In terms of their sexuality and this idea that, you know, one of the questions the reader might have is, well, what about them having sex?

[00:35:22] Whereas anyone with a bit more sort of foresight knows that it's just not a question you would or should ask someone with queer parents or indeed anyone with parents.

[00:35:33] No, exactly. It really struck me that, as you were saying that, that I really knew that situation of being a journalist and the editor saying, you've got to ask this and feeling like, I can't ask that.

[00:35:47] Oh, me too. Me too. It's the worst.

[00:35:50] And then saying, but the readers will want to know.

[00:35:52] You know, it would have been a mark on like the first draft of the copy.

[00:35:56] It's also, you mentioned about how just the subject in general is more sexualized.

[00:36:01] And I thought this when you talked about Diva being on the top shelf back in the 90s.

[00:36:06] I wonder whether you noticed when I sent you the page layout, the adverts on either side of this feature.

[00:36:12] On the left-hand side of the second page, there's a half-page advert for Erotica 98.

[00:36:19] Erotica being the sort of like adult industry show at Olympia.

[00:36:25] Okay. Well, that says it all.

[00:36:27] Yeah, you can kind of imagine the ads meeting of being like, well, you know, Chanel are not going to want to be near the lesbians.

[00:36:34] Or like, what brands can we put next to the piece about the lesbians?

[00:36:38] Yeah. Were there any, because you said it was quaint.

[00:36:42] There's some parts of it that feel a bit dated.

[00:36:44] I wondered if there were any in particular that stood out to you.

[00:36:47] Oh, yeah. The bit that got my back up was when she was like, well, of course, they're lesbians, so they have no fashion sense.

[00:36:54] But I guess at that time, yeah, that was the stereotype.

[00:36:58] And I guess you just have to pick your battles.

[00:37:01] Like, overall, I'll let that slide because overall, I think it's a sweet and a positive piece.

[00:37:09] Yeah.

[00:37:09] You know, I don't think that would get through an eagle-eyed editor or sub-editor today.

[00:37:15] I mean, that definitely sort of, that fit with, I guess, what I felt like the narrative was around being a lesbian in the 90s.

[00:37:24] This idea of like, in inverted commas, no fashion sense, and then kind of equating them with being radical feminists as well.

[00:37:31] Oh, totally. And them being scared to bring the men home and them saying they'll eat their testicles.

[00:37:38] Yeah, definitely that really dated it, I think.

[00:37:42] To what extent do you feel like journalism like this would have actually pushed the needle on LGBTQ rights and freedoms?

[00:37:49] I honestly think it really would have done some good work for it.

[00:37:53] For a start, it's in a mainstream women's magazine.

[00:37:56] Two, it's a really positive piece.

[00:37:59] Three, it's written from the perspective of the child who was straight and probably answered a lot of people's fears and concerns about children that are brought up by two mums.

[00:38:13] Yeah, I think it would have moved the dial, actually.

[00:38:16] I could imagine reading a similar piece, but with some nuances and some different questions asked and answered.

[00:38:24] Really?

[00:38:24] I mean, I've written a bunch of pieces not too dissimilar to this in that like, when I came out with my queer parent book,

[00:38:33] and even when I actually, before the queer parent, when I just became a parent myself and was pitching for articles,

[00:38:42] editors were really interested in my story of being the non-gestational parent of a baby and what it's like being two mums.

[00:38:52] So I think there is still an interest in it.

[00:38:54] So yeah, I've written about IVF, conception.

[00:38:58] I've, you know, written stories about like anecdotes that happened when I was registering my daughter's birth and at the NCT class.

[00:39:06] You know, her starting school and being on the school run.

[00:39:09] I mean, it's all copying, isn't it?

[00:39:12] Everything is content.

[00:39:14] Exactly. So, you know, I'm really milking, milking this for all it's worth.

[00:39:19] But there is still an appetite, I suppose, from mainstream press for these kinds of stories.

[00:39:26] And that's a good thing.

[00:39:27] This article is coming out at a time when people probably knew nothing and had all sorts of preconceived ideas about,

[00:39:35] you know, how damaged a child might be from having two mums.

[00:39:38] So this is doing a lot of work to break boundaries in that respect.

[00:39:44] Oh, my God. The testicle casserole.

[00:39:48] I know.

[00:39:51] So just to explain to listeners, there's an incredible line in this piece where Nikki's talking about how bringing boys home always felt nerve wracking because her mums were such big feminists.

[00:40:02] Yeah. And she says, I used to scare my boyfriends by joking that we'd be having testicle casserole for dinner.

[00:40:09] I also really like what she says, you know, what Nikki says about talking about dating, you know,

[00:40:14] because a lot of the Section 28 stuff about banning the promotion of homosexuality was kind of rooted in this idea that you could, like,

[00:40:22] convince someone to be gay if they weren't.

[00:40:25] Do you know what I mean?

[00:40:26] Like the idea that you could sort of sell gay to them as a lifestyle choice.

[00:40:32] And so I think this next part is kind of, I mean, it's not overtly, but it's sort of addressing that.

[00:40:38] She says, as feminists, my mums weren't that keen on men.

[00:40:41] They liked them as individuals, but they read men's actions politically and had a tongue in cheek, all men are bastards type attitude.

[00:40:47] But they never said to me, you've got to be like us.

[00:40:50] Besides, I always thought, sod the politics, I want someone to get off with.

[00:40:54] Yeah, I did really enjoy that.

[00:40:57] I think I might put sod the politics I want somebody to get off with on my daying bio.

[00:41:02] Hello, Frankie here.

[00:41:03] Just a quick one to say, if you have not yet signed up for our newsletter, you definitely should.

[00:41:08] You can read the features we talk about, see all the amazing vintage adverts and get access to loads of other bonus bits.

[00:41:15] Plus, it's a really good way to support the show.

[00:41:17] Find us at maghags.substack.com.

[00:41:25] Fashion tip of the week.

[00:41:27] Lucy, the fashion in 1998, Marie Claire, is so boring.

[00:41:36] I really struggled to find you a fashion tip of the week.

[00:41:40] I mean, I didn't.

[00:41:41] I mean, there's lots of fashion in this magazine, but I was just so upset by all of it.

[00:41:45] I don't remember the 90s being terrible for fashion, but I guess I do remember that minimalism was in.

[00:41:52] And we had a lot of utility chic in the late 90s.

[00:41:57] And that's very much what the vibe is in here.

[00:42:02] Anyway, I was very upset.

[00:42:04] But then I managed to find a steal her style kind of feature featuring Patricia Arquette in True Romance.

[00:42:11] Now, it was a bit confusing because True Romance actually came out in 1993.

[00:42:16] But the way they're getting around that is that they're saying when she starred in True Romance five years ago,

[00:42:21] Patricia Arquette preempted this season's obsession with floral and animal print mixes.

[00:42:26] That's a really funny window into, like, I'm sort of picturing the discussions that all the editorial staff would have been having when they put that together.

[00:42:36] Somebody would have been tasked with finding some style inspiration for this season's obsession with floral and animal print mixes.

[00:42:45] And the only thing she can come up with is Patricia Arquette in True Romance, which came out five years ago.

[00:42:52] And her boss is going, well, OK, if that's the best we can do, I guess we'll just have to, like, flip the copy slightly so that it fits.

[00:43:03] So it's like this kind of mix of, like, trashy, but also very, very feminine, like, girly that she's got going on in that film.

[00:43:11] And I have to say, I love it. There is a kind of gold metallic snake print pencil skirt.

[00:43:18] And you could perhaps pair that with some kind of sheer lilac top.

[00:43:23] It feels quite now, actually. It feels quite current, this look.

[00:43:26] It feels like I would see the Gen Zers and Hackney wearing this sort of outfit.

[00:43:31] Yeah. So I think this is going to be my fashion tip of the week. Florals and animal print.

[00:43:36] OK, I will see if I can make that work.

[00:43:39] Your beauty tip of the week, Lucy, is pink lipstick.

[00:43:43] If you only buy one makeup item this summer, says Marie Claire, make sure it's a pink lipstick.

[00:43:48] Fuchsia, bubblegum and hot pink are the statement colours for the season.

[00:43:52] To create the greatest impact, wear them with minimal makeup.

[00:43:56] And that actually feels like something you do quite, like, that feels like kind of a no-brainer for you, that sort of look.

[00:44:02] I do love a bold lip.

[00:44:04] So I've actually got a bonus beauty tip of the week for you this week.

[00:44:07] Because I was leafing through a hair editorial.

[00:44:10] And as I turned this page, I was taken back to 1998 in the most visceral way.

[00:44:17] Because this model has got her hair piled up in a messy bun on the back of her head.

[00:44:23] And on top of that bun, she's wearing, like, what do you even call this?

[00:44:29] I'm going to say a bun cage?

[00:44:31] A wire bun holder?

[00:44:33] Just looking at that has given me flashbacks to, like, being a teenager and trying to recreate this sort of look that I'd seen in a magazine.

[00:44:43] And then getting all of my wavy hair stuck in one of those completely bonkers contraptions.

[00:44:51] And, like, having those panics where I'm like, oh my God, I'm going to have to get my mum to, like, cut me out of it.

[00:44:57] And I'm going to have to get all of my hair cut off.

[00:44:59] And it was such an insane thing for me to do because I have always been able to do a very good messy bun just with my natural hair very easily.

[00:45:11] I do not need a cage.

[00:45:13] But you can't look like an ethereal princess without a wire bun cage, Lucy.

[00:45:18] I mean, yeah, I cannot look like an ethereal princess, but that is just my cross to bear.

[00:45:26] Scars and bars.

[00:45:27] Forget Tenerife and the Costa Brava.

[00:45:30] The latest bargain break is in Wroclaw, Poland, where British tourists relax in bars and restaurants between cut price tummy tucks and facelifts.

[00:45:40] This is a reported feature where the journalist, Victoria D'Alessio, has gone to Poland with a group of these women to report on their plastic surgery holidays.

[00:45:51] They're like medical tourism.

[00:45:54] And it is a trip.

[00:45:56] It really is.

[00:45:57] I really wanted to include this feature because for me growing up, like I've said this before on the podcast, but Marie Claire was my favourite magazine.

[00:46:04] I always wanted to write for them.

[00:46:05] But this particular sort of 90s kind of reporting, this type of human interest feature with all of its colour, like its amazing case studies, its examination of a social trend, particularly one where it's like a bit conflicting.

[00:46:21] This is why I wanted to become a journalist.

[00:46:24] Like this right here is the kind of journalism I wanted to do.

[00:46:28] And I still do want to do, to be honest.

[00:46:30] I totally, I totally relate to that.

[00:46:33] But yeah, that's an aside.

[00:46:34] This feature, I mean, it paints a very vivid picture.

[00:46:40] So to sort of give a quick summary, they bought a package trip to Poland.

[00:46:44] And the company that arranges these trips is based in the UK.

[00:46:48] We'll come to that in a minute.

[00:46:49] But as part of that trip, they kind of arrive.

[00:46:52] They're put up in a hotel.

[00:46:54] They go and have their surgeries.

[00:46:55] Just some examples of what people are having.

[00:46:58] Bags from underneath their eyes removed.

[00:47:00] Wrinkles between their nose and lips smoothed out using fat transfer from their stomach and thighs.

[00:47:06] Some had a full face lift, I think.

[00:47:08] Some had boob jobs.

[00:47:09] Neck tucks, eyelid lifts.

[00:47:11] And then after they've had this surgery, they're obviously a bit battered and bruised.

[00:47:15] And then after that, they're kind of put up in some other hotel for a couple more days while they rest and recuperate a bit.

[00:47:22] But it seems that a lot of the women take the opportunity to then basically go out and do a bit of cheap shopping.

[00:47:28] So yeah, that's sort of the basis of the story.

[00:47:31] We've got kind of two main characters who we sort of follow all the way through this feature.

[00:47:36] Joy, 52, and Angela, 47.

[00:47:39] Joy, we're told, is a retired divorcee from Blackpool.

[00:47:43] She's dating a man 17 years younger than her and thinks that surgery is the only way to bridge the age gap.

[00:47:49] Oh, that's sad, Joy.

[00:47:51] I know.

[00:47:52] But this is Angela and Joy's second trip.

[00:47:55] They actually met last year on a trip when they both had full facelifts.

[00:47:59] And this time around, they've each paid $1,250, remember?

[00:48:05] Double it plus a bit.

[00:48:06] Right.

[00:48:07] For a 10-day package tour to Poland where they combined sightseeing with surgery.

[00:48:11] And can I just say, these women...

[00:48:16] Yeah.

[00:48:17] God love them.

[00:48:18] I love them so much.

[00:48:20] I love them so much.

[00:48:22] Is it me or do you feel like you know these women?

[00:48:25] Like everybody has met a Joy or an Angela.

[00:48:29] Yeah, yeah.

[00:48:30] I definitely know a Joy and an Angela.

[00:48:32] And there were so many comedic points in this feature that I was really...

[00:48:37] Like I was really picturing a sort of sitcom type show.

[00:48:41] And I was picturing Julia Davis and Alison Stedman as the leading roles as Joy and Angela.

[00:48:49] Oh my God.

[00:48:50] Perfect.

[00:48:51] I would absolutely watch that.

[00:48:55] There is just so...

[00:48:57] There's something so kind of quintessentially British about them.

[00:49:01] So they're talking about why they love these trips.

[00:49:03] We love the shopping because things are so cheap.

[00:49:06] This is Joy speaking.

[00:49:07] Last year, it was a struggle to get on the plane home.

[00:49:09] I bought a dressing table mirror decorated with carved angels.

[00:49:13] I have such a vivid picture of that mirror in my head.

[00:49:18] So do I.

[00:49:19] A dressing table mirror and a matching clock for £15 each.

[00:49:23] You'd be talking at least 40 apiece in England.

[00:49:26] This year though, I'm just taking home fags and booze.

[00:49:29] You could get 200 cigarettes for seven quid.

[00:49:33] I know.

[00:49:34] I loved it.

[00:49:35] And that in itself is just so 90s to me.

[00:49:38] Like going on holiday to Europe and coming home with a suitcase full of fags and those giant bottles of body.

[00:49:45] Yeah, yeah.

[00:49:46] So they go and get their treatments and then they don't want to sit in their hotel room.

[00:49:50] They want to go out and like live it up.

[00:49:51] But there's a line that says,

[00:49:53] on the fourth night, the women by now restless and sick of the hotel food decide to treat themselves to a night out.

[00:49:59] Before leaving the rooms, the four who've had full facelifts tie headscarves around their bandaged heads to avoid drawing attention to themselves.

[00:50:07] So there's all these pictures of them sort of sitting in bars in like dark glasses and scarves around their heads.

[00:50:14] There's one woman though.

[00:50:15] Who's the one having a really terrible time?

[00:50:18] Is it Christine?

[00:50:20] Christiana?

[00:50:20] Yeah, she's having second thoughts, isn't she?

[00:50:23] Christiana, I think.

[00:50:24] Yeah, Christiana Hickson, a 53-year-old probation officer, was encouraged by her husband and two children to make the trip to Poland.

[00:50:33] I mean, okay, that one is saying, what the fuck?

[00:50:35] If my children ever turn around to me and say, mum, go and get a facelift.

[00:50:39] I know.

[00:50:40] And then it goes, but now, alone in a foreign country, she's having second thoughts.

[00:50:45] Yeah, I'm not surprised.

[00:50:46] She spends the day in talks with tour operator Alina Diebel, who has been organising similar holidays throughout her company, Euromedica, based from her Cheshire home, for the last two years.

[00:50:57] Alina's response was,

[00:50:59] Christiana, you must have that facelift.

[00:51:01] Your neck is just appalling.

[00:51:03] Your husband will never forgive you if you pull out now.

[00:51:06] I mean, I'm obsessed with her.

[00:51:09] Your neck is appalling.

[00:51:12] For all that there's quite, like, a lot of bombast and it's fun and you know it's quite brazen, there's a lot of talk of people sort of being, kind of finishing up their surgery and just sort of being herded into a hotel room and left there.

[00:51:25] And obviously, you know, in a foreign country where they don't speak the language, like they don't know the culture, they don't know how anything works.

[00:51:32] They're in a horrible amount of pain.

[00:51:34] These are the concerns that Christiana has, aren't they?

[00:51:38] Like, she's like, I'm entirely reliant on this one person to translate for me.

[00:51:43] And I am not at all confident that she is communicating my concerns or giving me accurate information in return.

[00:51:51] Another thing about this feature, it doesn't go into any discussion about the ethics, which I feel like if this sort of feature was reported now or this topic was reported on now,

[00:52:02] we definitely have a bit that was that sort of delved into the should you or shouldn't you and how problematic it all is.

[00:52:11] And are you perpetuating a certain kind of unrealistic beauty standard if you go abroad to have cosmetic procedures?

[00:52:18] I actually love that this doesn't do that, though.

[00:52:20] Like, I actually love that it kind of just lays out people's explanations and like the background behind them choosing to do it.

[00:52:27] And it doesn't kind of really do any analysis of that.

[00:52:31] Like, it just invites you to kind of make of it what you will.

[00:52:34] I agree.

[00:52:35] Another detail that I did really like was that, like, because part of the deal, right, is that you have your surgery at the beginning of the trip and then you have your recovery time on holiday in Poland.

[00:52:47] And the sort of side effects of that is that basically this poor surgeon has been hired to, like, frantically do, like, all these facelifts and all these tummy tucks or whatever, like in three days.

[00:52:59] And then presumably he has like a week off or whatever.

[00:53:02] But he's sort of working, like, triple hard, like over these few days.

[00:53:07] Do you know what?

[00:53:08] I hadn't even thought about that side of it.

[00:53:10] Oh, my God, there's so many, like, interesting facets to this.

[00:53:13] Like, I kind of want to write a screenplay.

[00:53:17] Yeah.

[00:53:18] I also really love the part about them all being completely unruly afterwards.

[00:53:23] And, like, Alina, the tour operator, sort of trying to be like, look, you need to give it at least 48 hours before you drink alcohol.

[00:53:30] And, you know, like, you shouldn't be going out in your bandages and blah, blah.

[00:53:33] And they're all like, fuck it.

[00:53:34] Let's get pissed.

[00:53:37] It's very British.

[00:53:38] The mood is ebullient and the air dents with smoke and vodka-fuelled laughter.

[00:53:43] Alina is indignant.

[00:53:44] Ladies, ladies, please, she whines.

[00:53:47] How many times must I tell you not to drink after your operations?

[00:53:51] Eight pairs of eyes roll and the drinking continues.

[00:53:56] Yeah.

[00:53:57] Loved it.

[00:53:59] Shall we talk about Alina?

[00:54:00] I think we should, yes.

[00:54:01] So at this point in the future, she's currently huffing that everyone is always in far too much of a hurry to recover.

[00:54:07] And then there's actually a great quote that I'm just going to read you from Alina.

[00:54:12] I had a 36-year-old policewoman who came last year for a breast enlargement and a nose job.

[00:54:17] On the third night after surgery, she met a rich Swedish hotelier and spent every night on the town with him in his Ferrari, her nose all plastered up.

[00:54:25] She could have given herself a terrible injury if she'd knocked her nose.

[00:54:28] But she knew best she was probably trying out her new breasts.

[00:54:36] Alina, very judgy.

[00:54:37] For a woman in her line of work.

[00:54:39] So Alina sells these package holidays to women and she, as we already know, she does not take any prisoners.

[00:54:46] She herself has had one facelift and on this trip is having more surgery to correct drooping eyelids.

[00:54:52] My attitude is that if you have wrinkles or a scraggy neck, fix it, she says.

[00:54:58] Christiane describes Alina as so insensitive, so unthinking.

[00:55:02] How did you feel about Alina, Lucy?

[00:55:04] I mean, I kind of agree with Christiane on a summary of her, but I also love her for it, I'm afraid.

[00:55:11] Yeah.

[00:55:12] I mean, we as the audience of this story could just really enjoy Alina as a character without ever having to interact with her or like...

[00:55:21] Yeah, or like feel vulnerable in her care.

[00:55:24] Yes.

[00:55:25] And she just seems like this once again feels very kind of 90s business feminism of like,

[00:55:32] I'm setting up this empowering company to give women access to cosmetic surgery at affordable prices and they have a nice time while they're doing it.

[00:55:40] What's your problem?

[00:55:42] Yeah.

[00:55:42] So I was thinking in terms of like cosmetic tourism in 2024, I guess Turkey is like the destination du jour.

[00:55:50] Like that's the place where everyone goes, isn't it?

[00:55:52] A friend of mine who works as cabin crew for a large and reputable airline that I won't name.

[00:55:58] She says that like every time she comes back from an Istanbul, there's a good dozen or so passengers who were on their way back from having some procedure or other.

[00:56:08] Ah.

[00:56:10] Yeah, it's so common.

[00:56:12] I also just think like cosmetic surgery has moved on so much now that in a lot of cases you can have all kinds of treatments like rejuvenating treatments and there's just not any bruising.

[00:56:22] There's not any scarring.

[00:56:23] Like you don't need all that healing time because we've got so many more less invasive ways of doing things.

[00:56:29] Yeah, that's true.

[00:56:30] Actually, I was thinking when I was reading it that one of the procedures that some of the women have had on that trip is like they've talked about,

[00:56:38] having wrinkles around the mouth removed by having fat removed from their thighs.

[00:56:44] And I was like, oh, yeah, now that would just be done with a synthetic filler.

[00:56:48] It certainly wouldn't be a surgical procedure.

[00:56:50] So I feel like, again, this idea of being all bandaged up for a week after having cosmetic surgery also feels very 90s.

[00:56:57] Oh, my God.

[00:56:58] Do you know what it actually reminds me of, Lucy?

[00:57:00] What was that?

[00:57:01] My plastic surgeon says I can't do any activities where balls fly at my nose.

[00:57:08] Oh, yes.

[00:57:09] Well, there goes your social life.

[00:57:14] What is hot and what is not in 1998?

[00:57:18] What's hot?

[00:57:20] High-flying spinsters.

[00:57:22] Yes.

[00:57:23] Earning 80 to 100,000 pounds a year while being single.

[00:57:27] I mean, I would happily take that in 2024.

[00:57:30] That would be hot now.

[00:57:32] And I guess what's not is like celebrity interviews.

[00:57:36] Yeah.

[00:57:37] Yeah.

[00:57:37] Not yet hot, we might say.

[00:57:40] And all of the fashion.

[00:57:42] Oh, God.

[00:57:43] Yeah.

[00:57:45] Thank you for listening.

[00:57:46] We hope you've enjoyed today's show.

[00:57:48] If you did, please consider leaving us a glowing review and smashing that five stars button.

[00:57:53] It'll really help the podcast grow.

[00:57:54] We hope you join us again next time on MagHags when we'll be pondering what we'll all be doing with our leisure decade.

[00:58:02] Bye-bye.

[00:58:03] Bye.

[00:58:04] Bye.

[00:58:04] Bye.

[00:58:05] Bye.

[00:58:05] Bye.