What does it take to become a successful businesswoman? As any viewer of the current hit reality show ?The Apprentice? will tell you, finding your true vocation and having the determination to make your dream job a reality ? whatever the obstacles ? are surely two key ingredients. Being multi-skilled in this age of multi-tasking would also be a useful talent.

All three are qualities that editor Patrice Morgan obviously possesses. Although she has always had a love for fashion, the 22 year old initially majored in business and accountancy at college before throwing it in to study fashion design and merchandising. The result of her studies? A brand new publication ? ?Show Off? ? out tomorrow which celebrates everything from clothes to entertainment to human interest stories, all with a Bermudian flavour.

?Show Off? is the culmination of a long-held dream to provide fun and excitement for the Island?s trendy readers.

Ms Morgan returned home in March, after graduating from Clark Atlanta University, with a Bachelor of Arts degree in fashion design and merchandising.

Ms Morgan also studied business administration for the first two years of her degree programme. She hated it then, but appreciates the experience now that she has gone into business herself.

As an undergraduate the bright young woman thought she would perhaps become a stylist or a buyer, but during her last year at university she formed the idea of starting a Bermudian fashion magazine.

On her return to the Island, she immediately got to work and began finding advertisers, writers, photographers and a graphic designer.

That was in April and ?Show Off? will be launched at Waterville, The National Trust?s offices, tomorrow, and in stores the following day.

Ms Morgan?s aim was that the title of the magazine should reflect something truly Bermudian.

?In ?Show Off? I wanted something with which Bermudians could identify and also keep the magazine?s cultural flavour.

?Why are you showing off again just because you have new shoes?? and ?Stop showing off,? are popular quotes which Ms Morgan wanted to capture in the magazines title.

?Such sayings are the essence of Bermudian life, and how Bermudian can you get? The words show off are usually used in regard to fashion, so they fit perfectly.?

Ms Morgan, a Bermuda High School graduate, said her aim was for the publication to reflect all Bermudians and to deal with topical issues, such as fashion, health, sex and men.

?I wanted the magazine to be culturally diverse and not just this black magazine,? she said, ?I want people to know that it is for everyone.?

Ms Morgan said the experience of running a bi-monthly magazine has been enjoyable, but she now has a new appreciation for the word juggling.

She has found several talented people in the arts who have made her job a lot easier, but she has in the process acquired many new skills.

?It?s a lot of work for me and another person to handle,? she said, ?It?s mostly me, but whenever I need extra help I call on my friends.

?It is challenging to get everything done, even though I say everything is going to be done by this day,? said the tenacious young woman.

?It is still difficult because I don?t write the stories.?

She said once she receives a story, she edits it to make sure it is the way she wants it, and sends it to the proof reader, who often makes further changes.

?And if the proof reader doesn?t like something and wants to change a whole paragraph, then I have to make sure that it is okay with the writer,? she said, ?And so all of that is taking about three weeks and I know it should only take three days.?

Ms Morgan said without her graphic designer Nikeisha Burrows, who she called a ?mastermind?, the publication would not be what it is.

?I get all the information and I would tell her the idea that I am looking for and she puts it to work,? said Ms Morgan.

?She is another young one who just came back from school about a year ago with a degree in graphic design.?

Ms Morgan said she never had a doubt that she would one day be the owner of her own business.

?When I began taking fashion courses,? she said, ?I wanted to have my own line of clothing and my own swimwear line.?

She came close to achieving the dream of the swimwear line, but the seamstress fell ill with severe back pains and was ordered to stop sewing.

But in spite of that, she almost got her designs into ?Vibe? magazine and ?Black Men Magazine? and was told by the stylist that when she had more swimsuits, ?he would like to feature them?.

Ms Morgan said for her first edition thirteen companies encouraged her by purchasing advertising space.

Aside from the advertising money, she has worked as a substitute teacher at CedarBridge Academy and in middle schools for the past few months, which has allowed her to achieve her goals.

?I thought the cost was pretty reasonable for starting here in Bermuda, but it was just a matter of finding advertisers,? she said. ?I looked at a few media kits from different magazines just to see how to form a media kit and I constructed one.

?Since then, I have been working on the magazine, meeting and just approaching people with the idea of what I am trying to do,? she said, ?I have a few supporters, which has allowed me to produce the first one.

?When it came to putting the magazine together, I had to dig into it and do creative work, rather than the administrative side.?

Having pondered the idea of the magazine for about a year, she knew exactly what she had to do.

?Bermuda doesn?t have a big fashion industry, so I said I would create my own niche,? she said.

?I had been thinking about the magazine for about a year and I had already started writing down ideas and topics that I would have liked to cover so it seemed like it was a natural thing to do. Now it is July and it?s getting published.?

Her love for fashion began at an early age and she often dreamed of attending respected fashion schools such as the Fashion Institute of Technology and Parsons School of Design.

As a teenager her dream was further enhanced when she was able to bring fabric to life.

Her mother did not have the time to teach her to sew, so she suggested that she learn to sew, rather than sitting around her job in the afternoons.

The budding fashion designer and her girlfriends created outfits for Bermuda Day and holidays.

?Once we learned how to make the basic things like skirts, we just kept going,? she said.

?I was so excited with it and ever since I just knew I wanted to do it.

?I wanted to go to California. I wanted to be in a major city and I wanted to be exposed to everybody who was anybody in fashion.?

But little did she know my mother was not having any of it.

She said her mother told her she would not pay for her education if she pursued a degree in fashion, citing that Bermuda was about international business.

She said: ?My mother said I could study computers, be an accountant, or a lawyer.

?It was everything that I was against.?

So Ms Morgan studied business administration, a decision that she has not regretted.

?I started studying business and accountancy and during my second year, I knew I couldn?t do it anymore,? she said.

?I thought about it and then I was like, ?I am tired ? I hate it?. I wanted to jump out of my statistics window ? not really ? I was just stressed.

?My heart really wasn?t there and I am glad that I went to a university where there was a fashion programme.?

Every summer she gained priceless practical business experience when she worked with Ernst and Young, for a management company, and construction company, and last summer in an Atlanta fashion trade show.

?I think that I am very business minded when it comes down to it, so being exposed to the business world has helped a lot,? said Ms Morgan.

?You realise what works and what doesn?t. Everything has to be tested, and if you fail, you learn why it didn?t work. It?s like, practice is best.

?I have had a lot of ideas, but this is the first one that has come to fruition, so I am glad and it has happened at the right time.?

After her decision to change degrees she headed for Paris, France, to learn a lot about fashion and to increase her language skills.

?I wanted to be around fashion and I also wanted to be bilingual,? she said admitting that she was not as fluent in French as she would like to be.

Ms Morgan said it was nice to be in the arts and thought life was not about being the same.

?Even though Bermuda has an international business community, it is kind of forced upon us to be that way,? she said, ?But we are not all supposed to be doing that.

?There are supposed to be different kinds of people in life and society that make up the entertainment. You need that balance and you need the fun too.

?It has got to come from somewhere and if no one is letting off steam than everyone is just walking around tense.

?We should have an area in our lives, which is work and another, which is play. Otherwise life is a pretty dull place.?

One of Ms Morgan?s aims is to return to a fashion institute and take more specialised courses.

And another goal is that she hopes that by her daring actions in producing the magazine others will step up to the plate and take a chance.

?I hope that I can inspire other people to do what they were really called to do,? she said, ?That?ll be good.?

At the moment the magazine will be offered for free and there will be 2,500 copies available.