It was five years ago that stylist Leith Clark started Lula, “as something to show the grandkids”. The sweet as sugar, fantasy-loving magazine has become cult across the world for girls who like to dream. Growing from the strength to strength since it’s first issue, Clark says the latest issue with Charlotte  Gainsbourg on the cover, is the most financially successful to date. Earlier in the year she celebrated with a pop up shop in Harvey Nichols, and this month The Room at the Bay, in her native Toronto. “When we started the magazine I felt like—I made it for myself. I didn’t realise people were going to read it too. It might have been the only one I ever made, so I thought, what would be the perfect magazine?”

“I felt that fashion magazines are about women looking at women, but there seems to be this imaginary man in the room. It’s so sexualised. I don’t fully get that. I made a magazine of women looking at women, without that competitiveness and that hard edge that we think we need as we get older. I think it should be… trying less hard. Lula is about going back to why we liked fashion in the first place and that really starts when you’re a kid, with Halloween and ballet recitals.”

With cover girls and guest editors like Kirsten Dunst and Karen Elson who embody her dream, she has created a world we all want to be a part of. Happy birthday Lula!

Grace x