Letters from the Executive Board

A little appetizer before your meal,

It is my honor to introduce your main course for tonight. Being the first issue from the new e-board, there is a lot of pressure to serve our readers the best meal they’ve had yet. While we’ll get to the entrees, I want to highlight the cooks in the kitchen.

The magic of this magazine comes from our secret ingredient: passion. Every single page in this issue is oozing passion. The collaborative effort from a director, to a photographer, to a stylist, to a model. The passion of being on set and letting out a scream when a shot comes out perfect. The passion of spending a Wednesday night in a dimly lit room, with people who made time out of their busy lives, to get together and make art. The knowledge that yes, this is a school magazine, but it also means the world. It’s something that I always think about. Something I always look back on with pride. Something I hang up on my wall and show off to anyone I can talk to. The real power of this club isn’t just cool shoots; it’s the documentation of improvement. A timeline of individuals who are constantly getting better at their craft. Photographers who go from amazing to outstanding. Models who went from nervous to owning any room they step into. This club, while a tool for success and pushing people to their limits, also serves as a reminder of how we continue to grow as people.

I joined Routure at a very low point in my life, when I felt worthless and lacked a creative outlet to channel my energy. Stepping into my first shoot, I had no idea what to expect. It was a dimly lit room, with people I had never met, with glitter all over my face that is probably still in my nose to this day, holding fruits and posing in front of the world’s smallest backdrop. It was something completely new. A new sensation. It brought me out of my comfort zone and put me on a path where I can help people break free from their self- imposed limits. I owe so much to the people who saw talent in a goofy, embarrassing, and loud freshman.

In a world of AI, I have nothing but the deepest love for the creatives who still exist. It’s easy to generate an image; it’s impossible to make a set design, light it, cast for it, style it, and somehow make it all work out at the end. It isn’t even about the end product being amazing; every shot we feature in this magazine has immense planning and effort that most people will never see, but it’s an effort I couldn’t be more proud of. I know what goes into this club. I saw it when I was just a model, I saw it as the marketing director, and I appreciate it more than anything as the president. It’s easy to be a name on a list of credits. It’s an impossible challenge to have people who live and breathe Routure. Who, by all possible explanations, devotes time to the little magazine that could.

Thank you to every single person who put effort into this collective work of art, and thank you. Yes you. Thank you for clicking the link or flipping through to look at this issue. The fact that you have spent a second of your day to view the art your peers have made is worth so much than you could ever know.

And now, let’s eat.

When creating this issue, we wanted to really look at the ideas of what it means to consume from all aspects of living. From relationship, to the food we eat, to the way we purchase, the way we look at ourselves, and the way we want to be looked at by the outside world. Also how as consumer we are actively being consumed, an questioning what does that mean mean for us as a society? And wondering, what will we feast on next and why?