Print Is Not Dead
Austin magazine L Style G Style comes out in Dallas and launches statewideexpansion
John Conte was named one of DFW Style Daily's 10 best dressed in Dallas 2012.Photo courtesy of L Style G Style
Makeup pro Terri Tomlinson also mentors students to become professional makeupartists.Photo courtesy of L Style G Style
The Austin-area gay and lesbian lifestyle magazine L Style G Style is expanding to Dallas and Houston with the release of its November/December issue November 1.
This is a sped-up version of what CultureMap Austin reported last January. L Style G Style has decided to adopt one state-wide magazine approach, as opposed to the previous plan of three separate publications.
The three cities will still have unique covers. For example, featured on the cover of the inaugural Dallas issue are makeup expert Terri Tomlinson of Makeup 101 and vice president of education at Wade College and fashion guru John Conte.
“If someone picks up the magazine, they won’t automatically know that the letters stand for lesbian and gay,” says co-founder Alisa Weldon. “It could stand for lady and gentleman — and that’s the point.”
The brainchild of partners Alisa Weldon and Lynn Yeldell, the gay and lesbian luxury lifestyle magazine has been growing since its inception in 2007 in Austin.
LSGS was born from what Weldon and Yeldell saw as a dearth of publications that positively highlighted the gay community. That meant creating a magazine for the coffee table.
“I was tired of picking up gay magazines and feeling worse about myself,” Yeldell says of ads that focused on physical portrayals. “Our ads aren’t sexually explicit. We use a saying, ‘We have skin in the game, not on our pages.’”
They say that while LSGS doesn’t tackle the political issues of the LGBT community directly, the magazine serves as a type of kitchen table advocacy. Yeldell says that the magazine reflects their community and avoids gay iconography that might turn away straight friends or family members who are socially conservative.
“If someone picks up the magazine, they won’t automatically know that the letters stand for lesbian and gay,” Weldon says. “It could stand for lady and gentleman — and that’s the point. It’s about getting to know the people before the stereotype.”
To celebrate the Dallas expansion, LSGS is throwing a launch party at Ilume on Thursday, November 1, 6-9 pm. There will be cocktails and bites from Monica’s Nueva Cocina and Dish. Tickets are free but must be claimed on the website.
Yeldell says that their parties “lean toward the legendary side,” and even if the magazine were to go away, its fans wouldn’t allow them to cancel the events.
Yeldell and Weldon have hopes of one day taking LSGS nationwide.
“It’s definitely bigger that us,” Weldon says. “We have to expand our media arm and start attracting national ads for a bigger scale beyond the local market.”
For that reason, they are pausing the print publication of LSGS to focus on finding an investor who will allow the mag to grow beyond Weldon and Yeldell’s means. But, for now, they’re excited about the Dallas launch.
“Dallas has been great, so far,” Yeldell says. “Austin and Dallas have certain perceptions of one another, but we’ve found that when we talk to people one on one, we’re much more individually similar than we are different.”
