Fiona Forbes knows people are going to love the cover of the first West Side Living magazine. She just can’t tell you who’s on it yet.
“It’s someone who is really well known not just for what they do on television. People will be very excited to get a sneak peak inside their home,” she says with her trademark smile.
West Side Living is the sister publication of North Shore Living. It’s apt that she’s sharing her passion for both sides of the Burrard Inlet as the magazines’ new editor. “I grew up in the West Side and I still live there,” she says. “The North Shore is my favourite place to play and enjoy the outdoors.”
With more than 30,000 television interviews under her designer belt, Forbes can tap into her extraordinary contact list to grace the pages of the “luxury of living” publications.
“If there’s someone we want to profile, chances are I’ve talked to them along the way,” she says.
Forbes is the popular host of two Shaw TV programs, Where You Live and Up Front. For the past three years, she’s also enjoyed filling in on the evening program at Vancouver’s News Talk Radio CKNW. She will continue making television with Shaw TV as she embraces her new role with Living. (She's also started her own production company, LadyPants Productions, with Mary Zilba of Real Housewives of Vancouver.)
The magazines are for the dreamers in all of us, she says. Geared to the luxury market, the stories and profiles will give us the vicarious pleasure of stepping into some of the cities’ most coveted addresses, especially those on the waterfront. “We all can’t afford the Point Grey mansion but we can dream about it.”
Forbes is excited to join the team at Living magazines. Lise Boullard, formerly of Vita, another Glacier Media publication (along with the Courier and North Shore News), is the managing editor, Robert Read is the associate publisher and Peter Kvarnstrom is publisher.
“The team has been a magical fit,” she says. “Excuse the pun but we’re all on the same page.”
Robert Read returns the compliment.
“Fiona will add her personal brand to ensure that Living becomes the pre-eminent brand in the luxury magazine publishing segment throughout Vancouver,” he says. “Fiona’s creativity, connections and commitment to this segment will add greatly to the team of professionals we have assembled.”
Fiona Forbes’ perfect weekend
As editor of West Side Living and North Shore Living, it’s totally natural that Fiona Forbes has perfect weekends on both sides of the Lions Gate Bridge.
“The Grouse Grind isn’t my favourite thing to do but it is the favourite thing I like to say I’ve finished,” she says with a laugh. “There’s no better feeling than getting to the top and having a glass of wine with friends. “The view is the best that sweat can buy if your money can’t.”
And her Zen moment in the West Side is hanging around with her dog on Kits Beach. “Chewbacca is a miniature Yorkshire terrier,” she says. Asked if she has as much fun dressing him up as she does herself, she says, “He’s much too manly for that. He might wear a sweater from time to time.”
