From small beginnings come great things. The distinguished Elegance magazine is today in its third year with five outstanding editions that give the inside out of Gambia by bringing to the limelight her creative minds, young female and male youth with vision, movers and shakers of the arts and music industry, fashion gurus, models, celebrities, entrepreneurs,educationists, sports icons, corporate chiefs and investments that cut across tourism, leisure, arts, financial and other socio-economic industries.
A qualitative magazine with inspirational and all-encompassing issues, Elegance is Gambia’s most inspiring and informative quarterly lifestyle, fashion and socio-economic read.
Three years ago I was inspired by my dreams and aspired to launch a magazine of this nature. I have never doubted my ability to bring this to fruition. When I embarked on this journey, I repeatedly asked myself the following questions:
What impact will I have on our society or better yet what will make Elegance Magazine a “must read” and the best in the industry?
How can I put up a good talented team that would have the equal interest I have on the magazine? I cannot recall the number of times I called it off because of my perfectionist tendencies. I believe that whatever that’s worth doing is worth doing well. I was also too busy with uni then“Man buguma yefi deffantu suma def dara damasey dem beh jeeh, walla duma ko start”. But my big heart believed in making it happen; by developing a good team of professionals I have been learning from and they learning from me.
When we opened a Facebook page in May 2010,surprisingly we initially attracted over 10,000 members! This number has continued to grow by leaps and bounds as the quarterly treat continues to attract readers of every level, and create advertising potentials with itsinspiring photography and reportage on women and men of substance, students and youthand celebrities, fashion gurus and other personalities in The Gambia and beyond.
Elegance also continues to present interviews with and contributions from business leaders, specialists and leading artists in The Gambia and the Diaspora.
We can with assurance call on interested companies to advertise with Elegance and let Elegance do the hard work of spreading the news of their good work and excellent service for them.
When it comes to covering issues that impact Gambia’s people and other communities, no Gambian lifestyle and fashion magazine does it better than Elegance.
We have launched an aggressive advertisement drive on Facebook and the results so far have been awesome! It was a real eye-opener to discover there were that many people interested in a proper Gambian magazine.
In fact I receive countless messages daily from fans enquiring about the release date of hardcopies of our next edition! I assure you all that by the grace of God we will continue to deliver year in, year out.
Once again I express my gratitude to the friends of Elegance Magazine for their invaluable words of encouragement and advice. I will not disappoint you …”Insha Allah”. “Yal na nyu Yalla meyy fekey” to watch this magazine grow, develop and manifest into this very real thing that was once a seed of an idea into a profound experience.
To our readership in the Diaspora and back in The Gambia, we welcome dialogue and constructive criticism with open arms and hope to learn from it. It is the people’s magazine and your opinions count; they matter and without your support it would have been just a seed and nothing more.
I thank Allah for making us live to see this day, I would also like to take this opportunity to thank my mum for her unwavering support. She takes my weakness and makes me stronger. Here is my favourite quote: “Mama you gave life to me, you turned a baby into a lady, turned a young one into a woman.” I will love you forever!
To all my family members, friends, well-wishers and the entire Elegance readership, “Aferr bee yen la.”
