Mood Indigo: Publishing partners Natalina Morelli (left) and editor Freya Owen. Without an urgent injection of funds, their Indigo magazine will publish its last edition in October.
A magazine that boosts girls' self-esteem needs a boost of funds.
It is an irony that Indigo, the magazine designed to boost girls' self-esteem and foster resilience, is looking for a white knight to rescue it. But that is what it will take to keep the body-friendly magazine in business, says editor Freya Owen. And if one does not come galloping by soon, the magazine will be forced to close.
Indigo, which began in Melbourne in 2007, costs $50,000 an issue to produce. So far, Owen and business partner Natalina Morelli, have been keeping the issues going through subscriptions, bequests and their own funds.
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To keep down costs business has been conducted at Owen's kitchen table or in various coffee shops between their respective homes in South Melbourne (Owen) and Boronia (Morelli).
Now both have run out of money and steam. Fund-raising appeals to governments, local and federal, as well as corporate enterprises have drawn a blank.
While the pair have been showered with plaudits for their product, and often told to ''keep up the good work'', the dollars have been less forthcoming.
''It's the same with everybody we speak to,'' says Owen. ''They love what we do, but aren't prepared to dig into their pockets. It's disappointing. We are looking for a knight in shining armour.''
The magazine, aimed at 10-to-15-year-olds, was created by a group of mothers who became concerned about their daughters' reading material.
The girls were at an age when they were being lured to the shelf groaning under the weight of the glossies, but the sexed-up content was beyond their years. Also the mothers feared that the heavy use of airbrushing was creating a distorted reality of body image at a vulnerable age.
Indigo, by contrast, has a strict no-airbrushing policy and uses non-celebrity girls for its covers. Rather than peddling images of extraordinary beauty as the norm, it concentrates on what real girls look like, pimples and all.
