While our friends and families are planning summer vacations - especially during these hot lazy days of August - the FLARE office is on overdrive. Our year's biggest issue (the September issue) is published in early August and we start working on it in April. The issue that you'll be seeing in the next week was conceived in April, written throughout May and June, photographed in June, designed and copy-edited in July and then sent to press on July 28. You should see it about 10 days later.

We always pull out the stops for our September issue — it's like New Year's and Christmas rolled into one for fashion lovers. We want to WOW you with our cover, design, fashion shoots and stories. I like to have an overall theme for the issue too. Last year, it was FLARE's 30th anniversary so we looked back at our history but also forward into our readers lives - and many of you are in your 30s.

This year, we were inspired by the new womanly beauty that's on TV (Christina Hendricks on Mad Men for one) and the runway (the Victoria's Secret Angels making a comeback on the catwalk). The features throughout our blockbuster issue pay tribute to sexy women in general, from a beauty shoot on classic hair and makeup to a fashion shoot profiling the world's best female fashion designers. Our cover girl had to be a news-maker - an A-list celebrity or model who is on everyone's radar right now. I couldn't think of a better example this season than Dutch model, Doutzen Kroes. She's stunning but I've never seen her look so breathtaking. And to wrap it all up in a sexy new look, Tanya Watt, FLARE's Art Director, imagined a bold approach with some new fonts and layout treatments.

But it doesn't stop there. Fall is the biggest fashion and beauty season in Canada so we're working on our major issues throughout summer. This week, the art and copy teams will start tackling the October issue's design and fact-checking. Only one or two pieces of copy are still to come. The fashion team has four shoots scheduled for our November issue during the month of August. (We shot the cover last month in New York.) In two weeks, our fashion room will be bursting with coats, boots, scarves - just about every type of winter gear you can imagine.

I'll be overseeing all of that — and thinking forward and planning our December issue. We'll be previewing items for our annual gift guide by the first week of September. So as you can see, we'll be booking our beach time for sometime at the beginning of winter!

I’ll be back again next week. In the meantime, you can follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/lisatant.