Meet the Ladies of Leisure

In your own words, what is LOL?

Ladies of Leisure is a zine publication about up-and-coming, special and creative women made by up-and-coming, special and creative women.

LOL is a platform for women to learn, create, support and get inspired by one another and themselves. At the moment it exists pretty much only in print, but we’d like for LOL to grow into something bigger – online and interactive.

How did the first LOL come together? What made you want to make a zine, and how did it culminate into this zine?

I feel it’s so easy these days to skim or lose concentration when you’re online. I usually have a million tabs open and sometimes can feel overwhelmed by the amount of content there is out there. When you sit down with a publication you have to focus, and it gives you time to reflect on your own immediate thoughts before going on to the next thing.

I did a zine workshop with Sally Tabart, who later on became the editor of LOL. I realised at this workshop, despite my terrible binding skills, that this was something I could totally do. That’s the beauty of zines – you can just do it.

I realised I was surrounded by so many talented girl friends in all different arenas – budding artists, writers, fashion designers. I compiled their work and it snowballed into something bigger. I think women were responding to this idea of it because it represented community. They could be like, “Hey, your work’s amazing!” rather than just criticising each other like unhappy high-school girls. A LOL girl ain’t got time for that – she’s too busy aspiring and working on something great.

Who’s behind LOL?

An all-star team: editor Sally, graphic designer Zarnie Morcombe, resident advice-giver Suzannah Ahearn and myself, the creative director.

The LOL family is growing with new and ongoing collaborators like Florence Li our website designer, Laura and Lauren of Practise Studio Practise and photographer Nadeemy Betros. Heather Lighton and Alice Oehr are also regular LOL gals who have contributed to both editions.

The best part is getting to work with your super talented friends. We’re always working super hard, but at the end of it all we’re always the first on the dance floor with drinks in hand! We actually had to reshoot some of our latest product shots because we drank too many prop Aperol spritzes before we had taken any photos, and they turned out a little blurry!

Describe your imagined, hyper-typical LOL reader.

Someone like myself. A gal who’s got dreams of doing what she loves as her full-time gig but who’s still (and forever) figuring out her work ethic, vision and capabilities.

Can you name a few key people featured in this issue?

There’s a great conversation piece with Bec Rigby from The Harpoons, who are really blowing up right now; Megan McNeill (of new Melbourne label Rouda) and Brodie Vera-Wood (furniture designer) are doing a collaboration at the moment so we thought it would be cool if they interviewed each other. We also had an all-star shoot with Michelle Tran (photographer), Sarah Gibbs (hair and make-up) and Ingrid Kesa (stylist), who collaborated on a fashion piece for LOL 2. We love and work a lot with the talented girls at Practise Studio Practise, so we have a nice feature on them too.

Can you describe the look of LOL?

Sometimes it can be nostalgic and sometimes of the now – popular culture has always played into our look. For example, in this issue we created the ‘FASH HUNS’ profiles based on Instagram. It seemed fitting for the profiles because people often know people in the industry by their Instagram handles these days. You can stay up to date with their current and past work just by scrolling their profiles.

Will there be an issue three? What can we expect?

Definitely! Sometime later this year.

Where can our readers pick up a copy of LOL?

Go to our online store, or head into The Good Copy, Hudson, Metropolis, PITCH online store (and Kunstler if you’re in Brisbane), to name a few.

Issue Two of Ladies of Leisure is available now.

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