2010 update: okay, it’s been a while

So a few things have happened since we put out the second edition of the magazine. A recession so big it has its own acronym. A brilliant and talented editor moving to Paris. It’s made the possibility of edition three look slimmer than Anna Wintour in a pair of Spanx..

Still, the fact that so many of you have come and left comments here, or emailed us directly, is incredibly heartening, and lets us know that there is an appetite for smart, funny, feminist fashion commentary and beautiful, stylish illustration. We’re working hard to finish up invoicing, and are looking into some sort of web shop for all of you who have written from out-of-reach places. (Unfortunately we’re all out of edition one, so it would be the full-colour, pretty rad edition two you’d be ordering.)

While we’d love to be a regular proposition, we’re just too small – and at the moment, too broke – to, uh, put out as much as we’d like to. So please, bear with us as we raise the funds and marshall the talent for a potential edition three.

In the meantime, why don’t you pop over to designer Caroline McCurdy’s site, and check out all the brilliant work she’s been doing since the last edition? Caro and her skeleton earrings are very hot property these days, and it might take a bit of begging to get her back if all the financial, literary, and artistic stars align for accb3.

Thanks again, and wholeheartedly, for your support. You’re welcome to rummage our wardrobe anytime.

Love,

the button.

accb 2 on the way!

Our baby is coming back from the printers soon – all shiny and bright – and will be in stores before you know it. Thanks for bearing with us during the long cold winter, when we burned submissions to keep warm and scrabbled for cash on the snowy streets.

If you’re in Melbourne, please consider coming to our fundraiser and launch. Details to come. Yay!

x

The mag.

accb editors shambolic and disorganised

Hello! If you’re reading this it’s because you Googled our magazine, or a friend told you about the site, and you thought you might find some cool shit here. We are so, so sorry to disappoint you but rest assured be are working on rectifying the situation.

How? We’ve got one of our nerdiest friends designing a brand new website – a real one – as well as being hard at work on the second edition. It looks beautiful as we are making the shift to full colour. There are some brilliant articles and truly lovely illustrations and we hope that you will like and enjoy and read it.

In the meantime, please bear with us. Or leave suggestions as to how to improve this website, that’s what the comments are for. The three of us – editors Jess and Gillian and art director Caroline – work full-time as well as doing this so ideas that can be squeezed into our lunch breaks or around an evening gin work best.

Also, we realise that we haven’t updated the stockists list for a while, so we’ll look at getting that as nice and comprehensive as possible. We are looking at the best way to get copies to those of you who don’t live near any of our distro points – an online shop is in the works but until then, if you’re desperate, email us (this website sometimes eats comments so if you’ve left a request in the comments, email it as well) and we’ll try to work something out.

In conclusion, thank you for your patience, and we’ll try to be as on the ball as possible from now on. Because there’s nothing more fashionable than three gin-sodden floozies balancing on some kind of sphere.

x

The mag.

Cloth-covered sensation sweeping the nation

As some of you may have noticed, we are now being stocked nationally at Borders, and more widely in Victoria and NSW. We were lucky to be picked up by SelectAir distribution, who are working hard to spead the cloth-covered message across the land!

We’ll be continuing to add to our list of stockists in the next weeks, so keep an eye out. Also, if you know any cool bookstores or run a cool bookstore or boutique that would like to have us on its shelves, give us the heads up – we love our current distributors to bits, but there is always more love to give.

x

The mag.

a cloth-covered button @ The Frock Exchange

What’s that, you say? The very lovely ladies of The Frock Exchange will be giving away copies of a cloth-covered button at their Swap to Shop event tonight? Alongside champagne and nibblies, and an array of Melbourne’s finest second-hand clothing? Surely it doesn’t get better than this?

Well, um, no, it doesn’t. Maybe if you squeezed Christopher Walken in there somewhere, but I digress. The Frock Exchange, that bastion of stylish environmental consciousness, is holding one of its vaunted clothes-swapping nights tonight, and everyone’s invited. If you’re unfamiliar with the concept, it’s bloody brilliant – everyone brings clean, stylish clothes in good condition that for whatever reason they no longer wear, and then they swap. Attendees exchange their old jeans or shoes or dresses for buttons, and then use these buttons as currency to “buy” new shoes/dresses/jeans/whatever. It’s a way of feeding your hunger for sartorial novelty without sending existing items into landfill, and without putting a strain on your credit card. Like we said, brilliant.

So where do we come in? Well, the organisers want to give away a few things as goodie bags, but are wary of “providing a bag full off useless objects to add to land fill.” They’ve decide to give away reading material instead, including ac-cb, as a way of giving gifts that fit with their ethos of sustainability. We’re thrilled, and have already started rooting through our wardrobes for those lovely bits and pieces that we fell in love with at the shops but only got around to wearing once or twice. You should, too.

What: The Frock Exchange

When: tonight, 7pm

Where: The 3rd Class Club, Duckboard Place (off Flinders Lane), Melbourne

Why: to support environmentally sustainable consumerism and prove conclusively that there’s truth in the adage of one man’s trash being another man’s treasure .

How much: $25 inc. nibbles and champagne.

Welcome! etc.

Welcome to the placeholder website for a cloth-covered button, a totally rad new magazine that was launched just last week.

We’re working on getting the website proper up and running in the next few weeks, and will be adding stockists and distribution, photos, press and more. In the meantime, we’ll try to get this thing looking as pretty as possible, and bring you the all the news as it happens.

So, why don’t you go check out our mission statement, marvel at our list of awesomely wonderful contributors, and tell us what you think? Oh, and let us know if we’ve made any spelling mistakes, would you? Because that would be mortifying.

xx

Jess and Gill