“I wanted to treat the superficial very seriously and the serious with a point of superficiality,” Joana Bonet, director of La Vanguardia Magazine, stated about her beginnings in journalism, in an exclusive meeting with subscribers of the newspaper held this afternoon in the Casa Seat in Barcelona and which was moderated by the deputy director Enric Sierra.
The writer and journalist recalled that she had trained in the Lleida newspapers in the eighties and that she entered the fashion sector “because I saw that the journalist position was very busy in Lleida and that fashion was the window to which no journalist wanted to look at.”
Since then he has specialized in directing mainly publications aimed at the world of fashion and women such as Woman or Marie Claire. And since 2006 he has been writing opinion articles in La Vanguardia “without missing a day to meet with readers.” For a year and a month now, she has also been the director of La Vanguardia Magazine.
Bonet recalled her goal at the beginning of “dignifying the magazines that women read” and having had as a reference French media such as Marie Claire or Le Monde “where fashion journalists were cultural journalists.” Even then they were talking “about empowering women and were concerned about breaking down many taboos.” There she began to want to change the screws and want to treat “the superficial with great seriousness and the serious with a point of superficiality.”
The journalist has shared with subscribers some anecdotes such as how Karl Lagerfeld opened the doors of his house to her and was “extremely kind to me.” When she later came to Madrid to receive an award from Marie Claire, she replied to journalists that she had come “because I like her editor.” “I was very embarrassed,” said Bonet, who also explained that Lagerfeld drew a portrait of her and asked her not to smile “because you will look much more interesting.”
Sierra has asked him about his clinical eye for discovering talent. There Bonet has recognized, on the one hand, that success lies in creating teams that live projects with passion. She has talked about people who had worked with her, such as Marc Giró and other journalists who now run newspapers such as Vanity Fair, Telva or Mujer Hoy. She defined herself as a very ambitious woman, “such a suspicious word applied to a woman,” an attitude that she is able to transfer to her teams. “Let’s dream big, let’s set the bar high and let’s see if it’s possible.” Regarding discovering young fashion talents, she attributed it to “that journalistic sense of smell in which there is always a very important dose of sensitivity.”
Topics have also been addressed such as the recent recognition of the right to abortion in the French Constitution, Artificial Intelligence applied to the world of fashion, the Alves case or, a few hours before 8M, where feminism stands. “It is a thorny issue,” Bonet responded. “It has been five years since MeToo that public opinion bought the concept of feminism, the stigma was removed and feminism was already understood and setting the public agenda, but it is also true that there have been voices.” that have gone out of tune and have produced a contrary reaction.”
And he added: “There is a perception that we have already achieved equality but it is false, although on the other hand I understand that it is a tired speech because we repeat it a lot.”
