Warrior Women: new mag celebrates girls

It’s not unusual to hear complaints on how mainstream fashion magazines, with their celebrity gossip hysteria and questionable advert-to-article ratio, give us too many negative messages and not enough thoughtful journalism. 

But a Bristol collective has started a new brand of magazine to offer an alternative to this. Warrior Women, an online and printed publication, launched in January by former model Stephanie Kiddie, offers writing about the honest experiences of everyday people, on topics such as body confidence, sustainable living and social issues.

Not only does it create content aimed to empower and inspire its readers, but Stephanie describes how those involved with running Warrior Women operate non-hierarchically to “inspire and work off one another in an environment that encourages collaboration and support, unlike the divides put up by the mainstream media”.

The growing editorial team are a community of people from everyday professions, like photographers, hairdressers and artists, who write about the true experiences in their industry, and challenge misconceptions about certain job roles or social groups found in mainstream media.

One of the main focusses of this magazine is profiling a monthly Warrior Woman: selected for the way he or she has stood up for women, inspires others or has achieved something in need of celebrating.

These Warrior Women have so far ranged from worldwide icons like Carrie Fisher, to those deserving of recognition in the local area – but all remind us of the incredible work done by, with and for women. They are the type of figures that this new media project believe should be on the front pages of all magazines. 

Founder Stephanie said: “It’s not about judging who we choose to feature by what they wear, how they look or on how popular their story will, be but promoting those who will enhance an understanding and appreciation of the incredible work being done by everyday people”.

For this reason, the only advertisements found in Warrior Women are for local companies, many of which pursue ethical and sustainable business models, such as Freyja’s Maidens, who use recycled materials to make festival wear.

Despite its name, Stephanie explained that the magazine is not just a platform for women and female issues, but to breakdown all social grouping boundaries that are put up by fashion magazines.

The motivation behind her project came from experiencing strong generalisations about her personality and lifestyle whilst modelling and realising that a great misunderstanding about how tough her job actually was existed in public discussion.

Much of this, Stephanie believes, come from false and misleading representations fed to us by the mainstream media, such as in popular documentaries like Girl Model (2012), that portrays modelling as a dark industry where those involved have little choice.

To help avoid the stereotyping that surrounding many jobs in the public eye, Warrior Women has set out to deliver a series of regular interviews with musicians and make-up artists to discuss what their work entails, professional challenges they’ve faced and their opinions on how their industry is represented.

So far, this project involves only a small editorial team, but as its online presence grows the Warrior Women ask for any potential contributors to get in touch about writing for them, either through their website or Facebook.  

Read more: Bristol’s best independent fashion