Teenage writer, fashion blogger and editor Tavi Gevinson is shown in a recent handout photo.–Photo by Reuters.

NEW YORK: Tavi Gevinson has accomplished more in her 16 years than most people double her age.

The style blogger, writer and darling of the fashion set launched a fashion blog from her suburban Chicago home before she turned 12. Two years later it was getting 50,000 hits a day and she was a fixture in the front row of fashion shows in New York, Paris and Tokyo.

Profiles of the young fashionista followed in the New York Times and the New Yorker, along with stories in French Vogue and in teen magazines.

Gevinson has added editor to her credits with the publication of “Rookie Yearbook One,” a compilation of articles, photographs and drawings from her Rookie website, which she started about 15 months ago.

“I always had it in the back of my mind that I wanted to do a print component. Each month on the site is a different theme. I eventually realized that to do a yearly book, and call it a yearbook, would be the best format,” she said.

The second book, due next September, is already in the works.

Despite its young audience, the yearbook claims it is not a guide to being a teenager. But with topics ranging from family, friends, relationships, to fashion and school its appeal is obvious.

Gevinson admits she started the website, which focuses less on fashion and more on teen life, because there wasn't an online magazine for adolescent girls that respected its readers' intelligence.

“I decided to make a website and now a book that didn't talk down to teenagers and had beautiful art, fine articles about TV and all of that.”

From bedroom blogger to booming business

With more than 300 pages, 80 contributors, and articles ranging from “How to Bitchface” to “Breakup Breakdown” and “How to Approach the Person You Like Without Throwing Up,” the book navigates teenage angst and a range of other topics and includes photos and graphics.

“Rookie is a place to make the best of the beautiful pain and cringe-worthy awkwardness of being an adolescent girl,” is how Gevinson described it.

It has also attracted some star power, namely online interviews with “Mad Men's” Jon Hamm giving advice about love and guys, and wise words from actor Paul Rudd and producer/director Judd Apatow.

When Gevinson started her blog at 11 she saw it as an outlet that helped her get through middle school. She never expected it to mushroom into a website and the business it is today with a huge fan base.

The youngest of three children, Gevinson recently completed a tour to Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Toronto and other cities to promote the book and still manages to keep up with her school work.

Her father, a retired English teacher, oversees the business side of Rookie, and there is a staff of paid adult editors, photographers and designers who work on the website and manage its contributors.

Despite it all, Gevinson seems unfazed by her success and the celebrity status that has come with it.

“I've enjoyed feeling I make something and people understand it, and that there are other people going through the things that I go through,” she said. “That to me is the most valuable thing - being heard by people who understand it.”

Opinion

Editorial

Ties with Tehran
Updated 24 Apr, 2024

Ties with Tehran

Tomorrow, if ties between Washington and Beijing nosedive, and the US asks Pakistan to reconsider CPEC, will we comply?
Working together
24 Apr, 2024

Working together

PAKISTAN’S democracy seems adrift, and no one understands this better than our politicians. The system has gone...
Farmers’ anxiety
24 Apr, 2024

Farmers’ anxiety

WHEAT prices in Punjab have plummeted far below the minimum support price owing to a bumper harvest, reckless...
By-election trends
Updated 23 Apr, 2024

By-election trends

Unless the culture of violence and rigging is rooted out, the credibility of the electoral process in Pakistan will continue to remain under a cloud.
Privatising PIA
23 Apr, 2024

Privatising PIA

FINANCE Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb’s reaffirmation that the process of disinvestment of the loss-making national...
Suffering in captivity
23 Apr, 2024

Suffering in captivity

YET another animal — a lioness — is critically ill at the Karachi Zoo. The feline, emaciated and barely able to...