In everything she does, yoga teacher Marlene Smits (42) follows her intuition. Without speaking a word of Bulgarian, she became editor-in-chief of the Bulgarian Elle, after which she founded the yoga clothing brand Urban Goddess.
You don't speak a word of Bulgarian and became editor-in-chief of the Bulgarian Elle when you were 29. How?
'In that period I was very searching; I worked as a freelance journalist for various magazines and spent a lot of time at home behind the computer. As a homebody I thought that was fine, but I wanted to live in another country. My aunt, who is half Bulgarian, heard that Cosmopolitan was being brought to Bulgaria and was able to arrange a meeting with the publisher for me. I already worked a lot for that title and thought:fine, we'll see. So I left, even though I had no plan. In the end, that conversation came to nothing and I worked as a cultural editor for a newspaper for six months. Until I got a call from an international publisher, who heard about me through the publisher of Cosmopolitan. She said, "We're going to set up Elle in Bulgaria and I have you in mind as editor-in-chief." I didn't know what I was hearing, but she was serious. Suddenly I flew from meeting to meeting to meeting and I was invited by radio, television, newspapers to tell about Elle. I was in a kind of surrealistic movie.'
Why did you stop after a year and a half?
'Because I didn't want to participate in the corruption that took place within the publishing house. Invoices were wrong, wrong deals were closed. In doing so, my team was thwarted and monitored – it was reported who said what about the director. It was such a high level of tension every day that after a year and a half I thought:what am I doing it for?'
In the interview with Marlene in the February issue of Santé, you can read how Marlene dealt with that tension and how she set up yoga clothing brand Urban Goddess.
Who is Marlene?
Marlene Smits (42) studied at the fashion academy in Amsterdam and worked as a freelance journalist for various magazines. At the age of 29 she became editor-in-chief of the Bulgarian Elle. In 2013, Marlene founded the yoga clothing brand Urban Goddess, which is now sold throughout Europe (including Spain, Sweden, Great Britain). Marlene is a yoga teacher at Delight Yoga and lives with her boyfriend in Amsterdam.
Text:San van de Ven | Photography:Bart Honingh | Styling:Linda Huiberts
