Monday Postcard #52 – A Year of Postcards and What It Means to Add some Mustard
Postcard number 52! Another reminder of how time flies. I started this category of The Pink Lookbook almost a year ago. Initially, I planned to use the postcards as weekly updates about my travels and work, as many of my readers kept asking for such type of content. As I enjoy writing and sharing stories, I thought I might be a good addition to the website.
Very soon I realized that I wanted to use the postcards for much more than just a weekly update about myself. Over the course of the past year, I discussed topics which are very important to me – such as environmental issues, intercultural topics and – my favourite – everything related to women, our situation in the workforce and double-standards which still affect us in our daily lives. The postcards sometimes even help me to let off steam (about a chauvinistic Uber-driver, for example) or to draw attention to a certain topic (such as mass tourism and the pollution of beaches).
Since the start, The Pink Lookbook has evolved from a hobby where I collected my travel tips to an online resource for career women like myself. I wanted to create something for this underserved market: I really enjoy reading lifestyle magazines. But very often these magazines focus on a leisure perspective or do not address the issues career women have. A typical example is when fashion magazines give style advice for the office and it ends up being completely inappropriate. (My “favourite” was when a big fashion magazine famous for its photography editorials suggested to wear suede leather hot pants to a meeting…)
I sometimes have the feeling that career women are still being pushed into a corner: just because we work hard and know what we want to achieve, it does not mean that we do not enjoy the beautiful things in life. We do want to look good, travel to nice places and enjoy our social life. We are no monsters who only think about work.
When I started this postcard-category, I thought it would just be fun to write about something. And maybe some of you would enjoy reading about it. But the feedback I got over the past year makes me really happy and proves to me that there is an avid reader base for this type of content. I really enjoy the discussion with you after each postcard. One highly popular postcard was the one about the “perfect size” for women. So many of you got in touch directly with me telling me how good it was to read about this topic and sharing your experiences. All these postcards reconnected me with so many of you, I met new people who stumbled upon my website because of one particular postcard and learned so much from your feedback.
My aim for The Pink Lookbook for the next year is to create even more content for women like you and me. I am currently working on Style Guides for Vienna, Hong Kong and Bangkok, further travel and art content and expanding the section about work and start-ups where I share my hands-on advice and cast a spotlight on badass women.
Of course, I will keep updating you with my postcards to stay true to what my Latin teacher used to say:
“Du bist a Mautner-Markoff-Produkt: zu jedem Thema musst deinen Senf dazugeben!”
(Unfortunately, this is a bit tricky to translate. In German we say that somebody “adds mustard” if they express their opinion to literally every topic. Mautner-Markhof is a big mustard producer in Austria and my Latin teacher called me a “mustard product” because I could not keep my mouth shut … 😉 )
So, yes, I will keep adding “my mustard”. Let me know which topics would be interesting for you! What would you like to read about in future postcards? Send me an e-mail or get in touch on Instagram, Facebook or Linkedin with me and let me know!