Here it is the awaited second-half of our interview with the Queen Magazine MILF and founder of Magazine MILF! Her MILF-ness dishes on embracing your own MILFness, how to keep-up a smockin’ bod, her fav mags, and more!
Any tips for shy mothers who are having a hard time embracing their MILFiness?
Go to Pepper at Paul Labrecque in New York. If you feel great about your hair, you can do anything.
How do you keep your body worthy of MILF?
I know it’s boring but you’ve got to eat right and exercise. I am partial to the French eating model – portion control, soup, tea and some dessert everyday. I have a major sweet tooth, so when I need to go beyond Fudgsicles, I cut back a bit on dinner.
Find healthy foods you like to cook – if you are cooking, you get to be around food without actually consuming it. Fish is delish and super-easy to make seem gourmet. Mr. MILF says my fish is better than restaurant fish; he no longer eats it out. Mark Bittman at The Times has lots of fast, easy recipes. Just make sure you get a list of low-mercury species.
More after the jump!
Same thing with exercise – find things you like to do, and you won’t make excuses to skip. These days I’m really into tennis (Adidas makes the best pregnancy tennis clothes, otherwise Nike’s are awesome), yoga (lululemon makes the best yoga clothes) and water aerobics (water aerobics is strictly anti-style; I proudly wear my neon blue and green TYR). I know water aerobics sounds ridiculous but it’s the most thorough workout, so refreshing in summertime and very easy on the joints – a good way to preserve MILFiness! Also, I found Pilates to be great during breastfeeding, probably because it involves zero cardio and teaches you how to stand in a way that instantly makes you five pounds lighter. I am also a big believer in MBTs.
Any tips on how to best deal when your MILF-status begins to fade?
Cosmetic surgery is NOT the answer. It’s really a sign of desperation and it’s always obvious. It doesn’t make anybody look younger, only like they’ve gone under the knife or signed up for a series of shots. I am a big fan of crow’s feet and other signs that you have a history and life experience.
All that said, if you’re finding yourself in the frumps, it’s time to evaluate. Are your clothes flattering and up to date? Ditto your makeup and haircut. Bazaar does a feature called “Fabulous at Every Age” and Vogue does an annual Age Issue. Whatever you think of those magazines, the message of the age features is right on target: embrace the awesomeness of the age you are, and run with it.
What prompted you to start this site and can you tell us a little bit about the kind of content it features?
Magazine MILF is a blog about magazines, fashion and celebrity, written by a very opinionated insider. If it’s in a magazine – or newspaper, website or blog – then it’s fair game for me. I think of the site as an entertaining procrastination tool for my readers and for myself.
I had a difficult maternity leave and I wasn’t sure what it was going to be like returning to work (from home) with a baby. I knew I wanted to continue my journalism career but I also wanted a way to be published without the constant hustle. Blogging was the obvious answer. At first, I thought the blog would be about mommy issues but my husband was worried I would run out of material. Magazines, we realized, would provide endless source material, not least because I was constantly voicing my analysis of them. Mr. MILF probably thought the blog would eliminate that need; if anything, it has exacerbated it. Now, though, it feels like a discussion that also happens to be very productive.
Blogging has made me feel more connected to my readers than any magazine or newspaper writing I have ever done. With big publications, readers are coming to Glamour or The Wall Street Journal. But with Magazine MILF, they are coming for me. The satisfaction is awesome.
I love your site because it says to women that they can be cute, sexy and continue to lead fun and full-filling lives even after they have children. Is that part of the message you were going for?
Definitely. Just as sexy and smart are not mutually exclusive, neither are sexy and motherhood. The trick is being appropriately sexy. You don’t want to embarrass your children with camel toes.
Do you think you’ll ever reveal your identity to your readers?
Right now I am enjoying the allure of anonymity. In keeping with that theme I am planning a masquerade ball for Halloween in partnership with an amazing non-profit called the Women’s Education Project, which provides college educations to women in South India.
As THE Magazine MILF, what are your go-to mags and blogs for fashion, beauty, and home inspiration?
True to my name, I stick to magazines for inspiration, not only because I prefer their tactility but also for practical reasons. When I am on the computer, I need to do only things that can be done on the computer and blogging is my priority. Once the nanny leaves and I’m alone with my daughter, doing anything online is impossible.
So what do I look at? I find beauty advertisements to be a better source of ideas than anything a beauty editor instructs me to do. Seeing a finished face is much more useful because it puts the products in context. And while I admire beautiful packaging as much as anyone, pictures of 10 different compacts don’t show me what I need.
For style, I find real people the most inspiring – New York’s Lookbook, Lucky’s “My Foolproof Outfit.” This month Lucky featured a lawyer for a French airline, and I’ve started knotting a beautiful scarf around my handbag like she does. Of course, anything the French do is perfect and I’m always trying to emulate it. Vogue’s Index pages in back are usually chock-full of good sartorial and decorating ideas too.
For home, I’m not loving any of the shelter magazines right now but Domino is the best of the bunch.I actually completed several DIY projects featured in the magazine. I am most proud of hanging my Hermes china – it looks like a very tactile work of art.
