Charlotte Jones doesn’t really read magazines. She doesn’t particularly like fashion, either.

That’s not really what you’d expect to hear from the senior who was an editor of Armour by her freshman spring and one of its editors-in-chief a year later, a position she’s maintained. But fashion isn’t what inspires her. Neither are magazines. It’s everything else.

“I did like fashion entering college,” she says. “[Not liking fashion] is a joke, but also it’s not really a joke because fashion as an institution, I dislike. Fashion as a thing that you wear on your body and express yourself with, I love.”

Courtesy of Charlotte Jones

Of the four editors-in-chief of Armour, Washington University’s style and culture magazine, Jones and fellow senior Paulina Gallagher take charge of the print side. Web is headed up by seniors Aviva Mann and Luke Summerlin.

But what started as a magazine and Tumblr page six years ago, focusing mainly on street style and what people “should” be wearing, has now evolved into an 88-page “piece of art,” as Gallagher puts it. A major rebrand of the magazine’s image, goals and marketing approach two summers ago took the staff in a new, refocused direction—one apparent in the magazine’s latest edition, issue 18, released this past Friday.

“There seemed to be a disconnect between the intellect of the Wash. U. community and the content we were producing because the inquisitiveness just wasn’t there about questioning fashion versus just reporting fashion,” Jones says of the magazine before the rebrand. “It’s like, OK, I think we should expand the sphere out of just fashion.”

“It used to that a [political science] major would come to Armour as an escape and write an article about shoes,” Gallagher adds. “Whereas now, we say, ‘You’re PoliSci? Find the intersection of style, culture and PoliSci.’”

Jones was an integral part of the rebrand and recounts how she spent hours of her summer after work, skipping dinners to Skype then-editors-in-chief Lily Sullivan and Grant Phillips who were three time zones away from her.

But the rebrand didn’t only focus on the magazine’s message. The group made the choice to move from a two 44-page issue per semester model to a single 88-pager. They also decided, in order to maintain a cohesive design, to have all the magazine’s design done by one person instead of outsourcing different spreads to different designers.

Not much pushback came from this change, though, partially because not too many people were involved then.

“I think for those who just wanted it to look better—they were happy,” Jones says. “If they didn’t really care about the content, then they don’t care about the content and [will] let me care about the content, right?”

***

The creation of an issue begins with a staff-wide brainstorm meeting, where the editors-in-chief begin by restating the new goals of the publication.

“That’s my favorite,” Jones says. “I think it’s so much fun, especially with the rebrand, because we established [that] it’s style and culture; it’s not fashion. We’re not going to focus on trends. Focus on questions, focus on ideas: What have you seen? What’s happening? What’s new?”

The team writes up classic brainstorming rules on the board: defer your judgments, no talking over one another, crazy ideas welcome, “not no, but yes and”—all in an effort to garner ideas from everyone involved. Then, the editors-in-chief decide what content will be for the magazine and what will be for the website.

That’s when they decide what the issue’s theme will be.

“It’s very organic,” Jones says. “It’s not like I come in and [am] like, ‘OK, this is what we need to do.’ It’s much more a curated way of showcasing what people [have] on top of mind.”

For this issue, that theme is “taboo.” The theme is evoked immediately just from the cover alone—a photo of a black and white mannequin. It’s “striking,” as Jones put it, and if weren’t for the mannequin’s missing arm, it would be easy to confuse it as real.

“It’s kind of taboo in that it’s naked, but it’s a mannequin, and we’ve had people on the cover always,” Jones says.

From there, stories get written and edited, models dressed, photographs taken and layouts designed. The entire process—from brainstorming to the final design—takes about 10 weeks in total. But once the stories get assigned, the chaos begins.

“[It’s] absolute mayhem,” Jones says. (“Mayhem, mayhem,” Gallagher nods along in agreement).

Each editor gets assigned to different articles, and each of the editors-in-chief gets assigned to different editorials—or photo spreads—requiring more planning of logistics, like finding clothes, models and locations. The team also outsources illustrations from people not on Armour’s staff.

“Always, always, the biggest challenge with Armour is deadlines. If we did this the four of us, we could finish this in a month. But because we want 40 people working on this, it takes exponentially longer,” Jones says with a laugh. “The other challenge with design is that the more time the better and, of course, we never have more time.”

They usually plan about three weeks for design but end up with about two.

“We’ll always try to push up deadlines so there’s more time to design before the date we have to get it to the publisher,” Gallagher says.

“This year went pretty well, though,” Jones adds.

The editorials are spread out over about two months. But the work for the editors never stops. When they’re not editing or designing, they are constantly answering questions from other staff members and dealing with specific shoots’ logistics.

“It honestly comes down to the two days before,” Gallagher says of the production process.

“Honestly, [it’s] kind of my favorite, thought. Being right there, being like, ‘Can you move that photo one millimeter to the right?’,” Jones adds.

This issue boasts editorials that include close ups of people’s facial features and shots of coffee tables and what lie on them, as well as photos of models sporting a new line of “Archie” comic-themed clothing.

Jones, though, was particularly attached to and enlightened by a piece she wrote on a coin Laundromat, where many Wash. U. students leave their clothing to be laundered for them.

“It was really difficult to write because, you know, I had a word count, and it should be a thesis on these interactions with this laundromat,” Jones says. “It’s kind of cheeky because it’s like fashion, OK, but laundry—like dirty laundry.”

She expected those who worked there to be resentful of the “rich” Wash. U. kids leaving their laundry to be done for them when others do their own using coins. However, she found them not too be bothered because, at the end of the day, it was still business.

“[There’s] the whole Delmar divide and different neighborhoods, and then race gets involved. And I’m like, ‘How am I supposed to write this in a few words?’” Jones says.

Courtesy of Charlotte Jones

***

When Jones and Gallagher went to their first Armour meeting their freshman spring, the group didn’t even have an Instagram account. Gallagher made the Instagram her pet project (it now has over 1,300 followers), eventually creating the director of marketing position, now held by three people.

“I created a position for myself—I was social media manager because we didn’t have anything. Did we even have a Facebook?” Gallagher recalls.

“I honestly don’t remember,” Jones responds.

The early days’ failures in marketing are hard to imagine, though, as the two sit in matching white long sleeve shirts with a distinctive Armour “a” on the left chest and the magazine’s name in thick black down the right sleeve. (“It’s technically a custom font!” Gallagher points out.) The group’s official release outside the Danforth University Center on Friday even included custom cookies with the same black “a” overlaid in white icing.

Much of the marketing success can be attributed to the rebrand and Gallagher’s efforts to improve the magazine’s social media presence. But that’s not the only thing the two have seen change during their time on Armour.

“Just organizationally, we’ve grown a lot. So, when we were young, it was so easy for us to become leaders really fast,” Gallagher says. “As we’ve grown with the marketing we’ve done, we’ve made it more into a big event when the issue comes out. So, that’s a bigger deal now, the distribution of the actual issue and actually having events through Armour.”

And people have noticed. Last year, the group decided to require people to apply and interview in order to be on staff, which they noticed was not the ideal model for the publication. Over 140 students applied for a mere 20 spots.

“It just didn’t work,” Gallagher says. “Some kids that we said no kind of arbitrarily to—just because there were so many—ended up coming back on staff and being really productive and those we said, ‘Yes, amazing, you’re now on staff’ didn’t end up being as productive.”

Jones says learning from that experience was one way she personally grew and changed, particularly as a leader. They quickly scrapped the interview model going forward. Instead, once someone has contributed three pieces to the magazine’s website they’re considered to be on “staff.”

“We really don’t want to be exclusive,” Gallagher says. “We want everyone who wants to write and produce content to be able to.”

But, that’s not the only difficulty the group faces. More publicly, they’ve been known to take some heat from the general Wash. U. community.

“I think what’s a challenge for Armour in particular, which might be different from other publications, is that we get a lot of flack sometimes,” Jones says. “Whenever you’re going a style, appearance, beauty-focused thing, you’re going to get a little flack for that, which I think is totally great. Give us s— when we need to get s— on.”

***

But for the four editors-in-chief, their Armour run is coming to an end as “taboo,” as issue 18 will go down as their final one. And passing the torch—especially for something they’ve seen grow so much—won’t be easy.

“I think that’s what I’m struggling with a little,” Gallagher says. “The four of us have really seen all of the changes in Armour, and a lot of the newer staff they’ve come in and … not seeing the changes is different.”

“It’s naive for us to think it’s going to stay the same,” Jones adds. “It’s changed since last year, so I’m excited to see how they determine what the changes they want to make are.”

Both say they’re excited to see what the future holds for the magazine. However, for both, fashion isn’t the future. At least, not their near future.

For Gallagher, that future is tech. She realized fashion, at least for now, wasn’t the field she wanted to pursue professionally after a business class her sophomore year took her to New York for luxury goods. She hopes that, one day, finding the intersection of fashion and tech could have her revisiting her collegiate passion.

For Jones, this decision comes back to her back and forth relationship with fashion in general.

“If you are seen as a fashionable person, or you like fashion or are trendy, I feel like it has a very neutralizing effect on everything else about you,” Jones says. “It’s just such an easy thing to see. And so I hate loving fashion in some regard because I feel like it’s such a singular focus of identity.”