THEN AND NOW

Fax or Facetime? Hedonism or housing crisis? After-work drinks or after-work side-hustle? Two marie claire staffers share what 30 looks like three decades apart

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1995 Nicky Briger was a subeditor on the first issue of marie claire, made her way to editor-in-chief for eight years, and is still with the brand as general manager. Suffice to say, she's seen it all. Here, she shares it was really like to be aged 30 in the year of landlines, launch parties and low-cost housing

Early 1995, and I was on the cusp of 30, full of nerves disguised as confidence and stuffed into a pair of painfully tight Morrissey Edmiston pants that cost a week's rent. With my curls scraped back into a scrunchie, I stepped into a vast, echoey Sydney office for a job interview at a magazine no-one had ever heard of. It was called marie claire.

There were only two people on staff: Jackie Frank, the founding editor, and her deputy. No HR rep. No cultural fit questionnaire. No “values alignment” PowerPoint. Jackie looked me up and down, asked a few questions, and hired me on the spot. A modern hiring manager might call it “reckless”; I called it a dream interview. Truthfully, she could've offered me a gig cleaning toilets and I'd have said yes. I'd been a major fan of the British edition’s unique mix of high-gloss fashion and fearless, female-first journalism. I wanted in, whatever the role.

It was the boom after the bust. Australia had clawed its way out of a brutal early '90s recession and was ready to party. Paul Keating was PM, dropping acid one-liners and economic reform like confetti. Inflation was down, optimism was up, and