Who's your Galentine?
By Alixandra Rutnik on Feb 14, 2020
"LOVE-BOMB her inbox"
“About three weeks ago we dreamed up this project in true feminist fashion: over glasses of rosé at the Wing in San Francisco.”
I don’t know about you but I honestly could care less about V-Day. I know, that truly horrifies some girls, sorry. But Galentine’s Day on the other hand, well that is something else entirely. Something big. Why not celebrate your ubiquitous love for all your BFFs?! I would literally not be existing right now if it were not for all my best friends. They are the reason I am always laughing and smiling. And all my exes? I can confidently say that I am thriving without them.
I interviewed Laurel Stark the co-founder of Next Creative Leaders and Aisha Hakim, a New Creative Leaders winner and founder of The Fellow App to find out details about their fun and flirty Galentine project. “We’ve been wanting to collaborate for a while — about three weeks ago we dreamed up this project in true feminist fashion: over glasses of rosé at the Wing in San Francisco.”
Laurel, Aisha, and a brilliant creative team collaborated to come up with the fun and flirty sayings for these Galentine cards and Aisha took to twitter to find all the talented female creatives for the graphic design element of this project. Thanks to these two women I will be love-bombing all my BFFs inboxes this Valentine’s Day with these irresistible friendship notes. Go send your BFF some love.
After getting asked by an Equinox membership advisor if I wanted to invite a valentine to the flirty flow yoga class at 6:30 am on Friday morning. (Dude who has time for a date at 6:30 am?), I decided to ask Laurel and Aisha what they will be up to this Valentine's/Galentine's Day and to recall one of their funniest memories from this so-called “holiday.”
“Hopefully Aisha’s Valentine’s Day plans are more exciting than mine—I’ll probably be cuddled up on the couch watching Frozen for the 3,576th time with my husband, some Whole Foods Cheesecake, and our four-year-old ECD, Ayla Rose. And for my most ridiculous Valentine’s Day memory, well, my husband surprised me with a trip to wine country when our daughter was only a month old. It was so stressful and cold, we were both sleep-deprived, and she had a poopsplosion on the way home. Not exactly a recipe for romance, but very memorable!” Laurel said. Yikes.
“My husband and I have been together for 12 years so a perfect, romantic night consists of pajamas, renting a movie, opening a bottle of six dollar wine and being asleep by 9 PM. #marriagegoals,” Aisha said. Sounds relaxing to me. Sometimes it’s not always relaxing though– Aisha continued, “My husband and I were young and poor, but we wanted to go out to a fancy restaurant for Valentine’s Day. I ordered the house wine because I assumed that it would be the cheapest. When I got the bill I saw the wine was 20 dollars a glass and we had ordered two glasses each. I spent the drive home crying over my negligence; seven years later, every now and then I’ll treat myself to a 20 dollar glass of wine to reflect on how far we’ve come.” Cheers to that.
So Galentine's Day cards– what sparked this idea?
This is Fellow’s first year—and our first Galentine’s Day collaboration! Since Galentine’s Day is a holiday made for women to celebrate their female friends, we thought it would be a great time to remind ad womxn to send some love to the womxn who have helped them along the way. Making cards seemed like a fun and creative way to help them do that.
Female empowerment and friendship is obviously very important, what message are you hoping to send along with these cards?
We’re in this together. As womxn in a male-dominated industry, the way we show up for each other is so powerful. Something as simple as giving a pep talk, offering a few minutes of mentorship on the Fellow App, or saying a heartfelt thank you to someone who may have no idea they helped you, can be truly transformative to that woman— and to those around her.
What’s your goal with this project?
With our creative careers and our initiatives (NCL and Fellow), we’ve been deeply and profoundly supported by the amazing womxn in our industry. This project is our love note to all of them. We want every womxn in ad-land who is lending a helping hand, ear, or leg up to her fellow womxn, to feel the love on Galentine’s Day.
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