Tag Archives: Lifestyle

Bruxelles, Belgique: Café Belga

Voici quelques clichés d’un incontournable bruxellois, le café Belga, à consommer de jour comme de nuit, Place Flagey. Moby y a fait un concert surprise. Sans oublier la programmation “Jazz on Sunday“: un concert de jazz le dimanche en fin d’après-midi. Et en bonus : deux photos des étangs sous la neige (!) que l’on peut admirer depuis une des baies vitrées du Belga. Vive le printemps!

Place Eugène Flagey 18, 1050 Bruxelles

City guide Bruxelles : Destinations

 

Victoire magazine, Brussels: Meeting Anne Pochet

Discovering by chance Victoire‘s site:

first I’ve really enjoyed the column « comme chez moi »  (« come at my home » about Belgium artits interiors). Different, fun and refine and I absolutely wanted to meet its charming enthousiastic Editorial Director, Anne Pochet. For three years and half , the Victoire‘s paper issue has been the week-end additional magazine of daily paper Le Soir, about trends in culture, lifestyle and fashion.

 It’s not a women magazine. The first challenge was this magazine must not be sexually identified: 52% of our readers are men. It’s a subjective vision with a proximity idea about what’s going on in Belgium. We avoided all the fashion magazines clichés. Let’s talk about us (Belgium people), not by chauvinism, but to know where is the Belgium ine the world trends. We’ve always found lots of recognition abroad, but really few at home. With Victoire, we kindly look at the country.

So where is Belgium in world tendancies?

– Very good question! It’s really really difficult to say, the image moves fast: lots of people have great ideas and projects. It’s a subtile networking : everybody knows each other, a small land with many shooting stars.

Gratuated of journalism,

Anne’s worked first for women magazines and as a production director and a Web project manager for the media group Sanoma for fifteen years. She’s also been a youth litterature’s critic for ten years :

– A great job. I was a young mom and I was happy to make parents discover less formal worlds.

She became a specialist in education’s philosophy and has presented a less “formal vision of eduction and the pratical aspect, without any activist message” in a radio show. And she’s hosted a short tv show at the RTBF 1 and 2, co-produced by One (Belgium offism of childhood and birth) and in collaboration with One’s experts: Air de Familles, viewed by 200.000 homes every week. And today as the editorial director of Victoire, her first big difficulty was to make the team. Her eyes sparkle:

– Everything works with human, but human has to bring content. I am a very good pitcher, choosing the columns. I delegate a lot, cause I want the people who works for the magazine know their responsability is complete and their skills tested in a positive way. Today my big pleasure is to manage my journalists team. During the week-end, I am the most difficult reader of Victoire visiting spots recommened by my journalists.

Victoire‘s future?

There is a world between the today Victoire and the one of three years ago : the magazine slowly changed, like a tectonic plates sliding. Since September 2009, we’ve had new sections « comme chez moi », « city strip », « petite semaine ». I am worried to get stocked in something successfull. My will: making changes with new contents, not only by the lay out . Victoire magazine has to be a beautiful object: a small world.

– I have the big luck to be born in Brussels

and not in a Texan corn field, it’s a real mental comfort. Brussels is a bit  hung-up and a bit complicated and nice for living. And I’m happy here.

A hotspot :  

WIELS,“in a splendid building, for my cultural gym : it’s terribly difficult for me to appreciate contemporary art”,  Av. Van Volxemlaan 354, 1190 Brussels. 

Thanks a lot Anne! Victoire: in kiosk every week-end with the daily paper Le Soir.

Related posts : INTERVIEWS

Shopping in Tokyo

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For packaging lovers: a Tokyo shopping of everyday objects. Forget your Transformers, for this inflatable balloon: a light, disposable and 100% friendly must have. Better than Aibo!

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Nice guys those brooms! Girly pink colour for the young housewifes, under 50 years old. Course, the concept is absolutely not sexist at all! Still for girls only (gomenasai ladies!): housework aerodynamic “shoes”. I don’t know for you, but for me: no way!

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More “Easy” or “Irritated”? Irritated looks really cool! Sorry kids, I keep those small cuddly toys for me!

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Wow! The second picture of tinting packaging reminds me a Corean melo soap. Have you noticed how serious and absolutely not sexy are the married couples tinting boxes? What’s the most frightening in this packaging concept: the depressive marketing’s view of 30’s years old couples, or having “already” white hair, or having the same tinting husband and wife, or both? What about a golden glitter domino to bring back a bit of imaginativeness?

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Shisheido in “supa” (supermarket)! Next: expensive crazy sushi USB keys.

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Cutie cutie childdish ustensils for maki and shaping rice: you don’t have to be a great cooker, just be creative! Sugoi né!

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Related posts about shopping in different Tokyo districts and City guide Tokyo: Destinations