Media | This week in Drum
Thank you to the Drum magazine team for this incredibly kind write up about my career, my journey and my book ‘When The Filter Fades’.
Article snippet:
She looks and smells like money and so it’s unsurprising when Janine Jellars walks into swish Nice on Seventh on the plummy Parkhurst suburb’s famous restaurant strip looking like an AmiAmalia model.
“I subscribe to the Khanyi Mbau school of thought,” she quipped a couple of days prior to our brekkies date. “Money loves me. When money is lonely, it looks for me.”
She’s certainly not materialistic but the former magazine editor is indubitably the girl she thinks she is and so, when Drum reaches out to her to interview her about her author era and contemporaneously obtaining her MBA at Gibs, she suggests this chic, understated brunch spot for the chat.
It’s one of her favourite bistros.
When we meet, it’s a rainy morning in the little true north nook that’s known for being “one of the first suburban high streets to offer street side-café dining”, according to the Avenue’s official website. The area has developed into a lot more, though, over the years, with some seriously stylish open-air shopping experiences and boutiques – and also home to Janine, both quite literally and figuratively Literally because she lives here. Figuratively because she looks it. Although growing up a bookish child in Cape Town, she’s always been coolly elegant.
She walks in donning an exquisitely crafted jumper and jeans and the trendy Bottega drop earrings that every baddie is currently wearing at the end of every GRWM TikTok vid.
She’s quick to correct me it’s the dupes we’re all rocking, not Bottega Veneta, hanging from her ears. She’ll buy a Hermès handbag but never expensive design dress jewellery because the material and craftmanship doesn’t match the price tag. “You’re just paying for the brand.”
It’s the first bar (advice) she drops before requesting a macchiato from the waitron. She doesn’t even glance at the menu to decide on her breakfast order. She knows it inside-out.
She’s been busy, studying, running her own business, mentoring others and writing her first novel to boot. We have more to talk about than time, so we agree to discuss the book after its launch in Sandton City.
A few weeks later, she’s sitting at her home study desk in Parkhurst when she starts responding to Drum’s questions. It’s where the writer, editor and marketer feels most productive. “It’s best for me to work in a formalised space,” she explains.