The return of cool? The Face is returned after 15 years
After a hiatus of 15 years, the Face, the style mag acknowledged for its putting covers that helped release the careers of Kate Moss, Alexander McQueen, Juergen Teller, and Phoebe Philo, is again. Theface.Com is online now and may be accompanied by the aid of a quarterly mag in September, aiming to reclaim its fame as a style bible of a technology.
“It seems like a really perfect time for the Face to becoming lower back,” says the editor, Stuart Brumfitt. “In those unsure times, we need to create an amusing, smart, unifying area for fashion-, a way of life- and society-loving humans to enjoy.” Dan Flower, the mag’s coping with a director, agrees about the timing. “When the Face got here out the primary time [in 1980], there was loads of political upheaval,” he says. He believes it will appeal to a newly politically conscious technology, and comparisons are drawn between the 80s and the modern-day.
At its top, Face magazine sold 70,000 copies a month. Its covers – proposing the likes of Moss, Bart Simpson, Madonna, McQueen dressed as Joan of Arc, David Beckham or a 13-yr-antique boy dressed as a gangster – ensured it stood out at the newsstand, and it has become a monthly pop-subculture speaking point for the duration of its 24-yr run up to 2004.
Brumfitt says: “The covers had been so effective. There’s one cowl for all people available. It gave you a snapshot of style at that moment in time but greater thru character and subculture and way of life.” He is hoping to recapture that feel with the relaunch, which will emulate the arresting covers, witty writing, and a mix of content that touched on the A-listing and popular culture, game, cutting-edge affairs, and young people tradition.
“I suppose subcultures exist in sudden approaches,” Brumfitt says. “I got a few images in from the Drake concert – and glaringly Drake is a massive rap megastar, so it’s no longer a lifestyle in the way you’d expect – however, youngsters were pushing thrilling seems. I discover that pretty charming.” As for cool, there’s an area for that, too. “The Face had an absolutely cool song and style. However, the proper cool changed into the fact it turned into so open-minded and curious and clever and funny,” he says. “That’s nevertheless the coolest factor for me.”
The relaunch has had blended reactions. Paul Gorman, the author of The Story of the Face, became skeptical in a Creative Review article, criticizing the relaunch for a loss of the original’s attitude. The founder, Nick Logan, turned into supportive, but others were mystified. The new e-book targets to reach five million humans with the aid of the cease of the 12 months. Theface.Com stocks the one-of-a-kind crimson-and-white branding of the unique. It launches with a special feature with French-British rapper Octavian. Other features include communication between the rapper Ms. Banks and her associate, cruiserweight boxer Lawrence Okolie, and an investigative piece about the World Congress of Families. The Christian coalition held a current conference in Italy attended by some distance-right organizations.
The rights to the Face brand were offered in 2017 by way of Wasted Talent, the figure business enterprise of Mixmag and Kerrang!. Flower, who labored at the Face’s sister titles Pop and Arena, wants to get the movement of the magazine to a hundred,000 – extra than Vanity Fair, however much less than Harper’s Bazaar. Revenue will come from online advertising and marketing and logo partnerships; Adidas has already signed up. Flower says there is the desire to paintings on documentaries with Netflix or Amazon and more: “maybe” T-shirts, cellphone covers, and even college courses.
The flower has hired a creative council who work remotely – the dressmaker Grace Wales Bonner, marketing expert Acyde Odunlami and Skepta’s manager, Grace Ladoja, are covered. The in-house crew mirrors Flower’s target market. The digital editor, Brooke McCord, 27, has labored at Dazed and that i-D. When I visit their east London workplace on the Monday before launch, she is dressed in a black sweatshirt with a camisole over the top and lots of gold jewelry.
Brumfitt, formerly of the i-D channel Amuse, is an amiable 37-yr-old who wears a T-blouse with the logo of cult art books publisher Rizzoli. The duo oversees numerous workers of 15 contributors – one in a West Ham unfashionable top, some other with waist-length braids and high tops. They huddle over laptops and copies of vintage problems – Eminem in 2002, Sade in 1984 – the pages strewn in highlighter flags.
Brumfitt and McCord know that nostalgia is a double-edged sword – it guarantees a hobby but makes it difficult to begin afresh. The answer is to go together with the authentic spirit – McCord praises a “potential to tie together counterculture and mainstream tradition” – but replace it. In the old Face, a function on warfare-torn Sarajevo would possibly have a shared area with a lo-fi style shoot an interview with a young Leonardo DiCaprio. The new one takes this version. “It’s a big point of difference that plenty of different style magazines don’t have,” says Brumfitt. It’s one to optimistically help him interact with a technology that is more and more politically engaged.