Highlights of Sean Avery's diary for Vogue

Sean Avery, in case you didn't know, is an American hockey player who is interning at Vogue. Instead of fetching coffee, unpublished Harry Potter manuscripts and laundry, he gets to sit in on senior editor meetings, help style photoshoots and interview famous people. You know, the real dirty work. So what does the job a million girls would kill for include? Here is a snippet from his blog on MensVogue.com

He loves fashion! And hockey players make fun of him!

Some people question whether I'm straight; others give me compliments. Some women find it a turn-on. My teammates are very supportive and cool about my interest in fashion — sometimes they even ask for my advice on what to wear. But I'd be lying to you if I said that I don't take some verbal abuse from opposing players for the clothes I wear, or for my interest in something — "fashion" — that I think sounds a little frightening to narrow-minded blockheads. I also realize that this isn't necessarily their fault — they think it's what they're supposed to think.

He is super important because he sits in on meetings

I jumped right in. First up was a creative meeting attended by the magazine's senior staff, which gave me a broad look at upcoming shoots, potential covers, and which writers, editors, and photographers were covering which stories. The whole thing is impossible to explain, really — let's just say it was a 4,000-part overview of where the magazine is going and what needed to get done to light up women's faces across America — and, yes, the occasional hockey player.


He has trouble balancing lunch trays

And then it was lunchtime. The cafeteria in the Condé Nast building — which houses Vogue and Men's Vogue and Vanity Fair and The New Yorker and about every other magazine you've ever heard of aside from The Hockey News — is filled with some of the best-looking and best-dressed women in New York. Even aside from that distraction, my first attempt at getting lunch didn't go so well. You see, I needed two trays to hold my plates of beef stroganoff and my salad (which alone could probably feed four) and my two bottles of water and my Jello for dessert. To have two full trays in the Condé Nast cafeteria is like seeing a hockey player wearing skinny jeans — it just doesn't happen. And while my stick-handling on the ice keeps getting better and better, my tray-handling leaves a bit to be desired. I still can't find the girl who fled the cafeteria with beef stroganoff spilled all over her, but just in case she's reading this: You can find me on the twelfth floor, and I owe you a new outfit. I now limit myself to one tray at a time.

He loves clothes and he thinks celebrities are assholes

Two weeks into the job I flew to L.A. to help out on two more, photo shoots, the first for Vogue and the second for the Fashion Rocks supplement, which covers the influence of music on fashion and vice versa — something I pay a lot of attention to. On the first day, I was assigned to a film crew we had shooting B-roll for Vogue.com: My job was to somehow get the B-roll team inside the main photo shoot and secure 20 minutes of shoot time and a quick interview.

Some people might think that pro athletes can be difficult. Generally speaking, this isn't really true. Celebrities are difficult. We waited from noon to 4:30 P.M. and didn't get a minute of film.

Thank God for Day Two and Shoot Two. The photographer was shooting a pop band in a studio. The production lasted for hours and hours, but I had a smile plastered on me all day. This was the first time I was able to have real input into something I love — yes, clothes.