I’m Ione, I'm the founding editor-in-chief of Polyester, which I founded 8 years ago when I was 20. I’m also a writer and have just published my first collection of essays, Poor Little Sick Girls, with Dialogue Books. I co-host our podcast, The Polyester Podcast, and generally run everything to do with Polyester. 

Polyester was founded on inclusion rather than aspiration; other publications, historically, have often worked on the assumption that their readers are longing to become like the people in the pages of the magazines that they read. Polyester has always wanted to make people feel a part of the community, rather than excluded, and as a publication we have always dismissed this idea that to buy into something it has to feel unattainable.
It definitely still feels surreal that we have such a large audience, but I think it speaks to how people are dissatisfied with the media landscape in general and are seeking something different and more honest. We work really hard to foster community and to be in conversation with our audience rather than preaching to them, and I think that speaks to why we continue to grow.

It's always meant to question norms, to be unashamed in who you are, despite the fact that others may belittle it or consider your interests unintellectual and serious. Polyester seeks to celebrate overtly femme aesthetics as well as provide a space for marginalised people to tell their stories unapologetically; and for me “have faith in your own bad taste” really surmises all of that. As a quote, it always urges us to question while being proud of who you are; and I really think it's an amazing lens to dismantle so many of the ‘isms’ that exist in our society.

This year we’ve been mostly focusing on The Sleepover Club, which is a weekly feminist pop culture podcast that sort of pulls apart whatever is going on online that week and looks at it through a critical lens. So much of our social politics become flattened and distorted through the internet, so the podcast is an opportunity for us to pull it apart and really consider what's going on within our culture at whichever current moment. I think there's so many interesting things happening online, and on TikTok especially, that will shape how we talk about girl culture and feminist culture in 10 years’ time, and at the moment they’re just being dismissed as trends. It's important to analyse, celebrate, and criticise this current cultural moment we find ourselves in.
Obsessions is our guest interview format in which we talk to a person we love about something they’re absolutely obsessed with; the only caveat being it cannot be their job. I feel with marginalised people in particular, the line of questioning in interviews is so often based around how they ‘made it,’ so it's nice to focus on something that isn’t these people’s work and to get to know them on a different level.

I'd love to have a bit more security in terms of Polyester for our team and to continue to grow at a sustainable pace. I'd love to do more print and events which foster community – a large portion of our audience is in the United States and would love to do some events and work over there. In a dream world, I'd love to look into developing an app or somewhere online in which marginalised people can feel free to be themselves away from censorship and the current restrictive, patriarchal nature of social media. I'd also love to become something of an alternative, radical Condé Nast and begin publishing other people’s zines and publications. But, ultimately, I'd like the publication to continue to be an inclusive space, on a scale that keeps gradually increasing.

It's definitely made me both more cynical and more hopeful at the same time.

I think all of our relationships with the internet have changed since we were younger. The internet itself has become so much more commercialised and engagement-driven, it makes sense that we all have really complicated feelings towards it. I try to feel hopeful regarding the future of social media. I still feel like there is so much good to be found but the power isn't being harnessed by the people that could enact positive change; instead, we have the same handful of billionaires running everything. I try to keep my personal relationship with the internet as light as possible and not get bogged down in it all, but it's hard!

Wellness is something that's been bubbling away in the collective consciousness for many decades, but our modern obsession with being well and healthy is definitely something that has been accelerated by social media. Now, being healthy isn’t just something we do for ourselves, but something we do for our audiences and followers too. It’s a lifestyle rather than just a consideration in the grand scheme of life. Influencers and the way the media in general discuss health positions being one hundred per cent healthy as good and anything else as entirely bad, which automatically renders sick people as lesser than. It puts us in a dangerous position in which we feel we can cast moral judgement on those who we do not feel are performing ‘health’ to the same level we are.

Women and marginalised people are made to feel unacceptable their whole lives in so many different ways, which is what I aim to pick apart in the book. How we’re ostracised based on beauty standards, standards of health, class, and other cultural standards that are designed to keep us oppressed and make us feel inadequate. I hope people reading the book feel a bit more equipped in understanding how these systems fail us, and how we can fight against them. I hope it also makes readers feel less alone.

Hopefully more writing! I’d love to do a second book. Poor Little Sick Girls comes out in paperback next year, too. And then lots more Polyester, and lots more podcast hosting!