About a month or so ago when I was interning and waiting for some clothes to be delivered I spent my time doing what I usually do just traipsing the titnernet pon blogs and reading magazines and just generally being lame. But I came across a spread for a new magazine coming out called Virgine Magazine.
The spread I saw wasn't that impressive it was based on celebrity icons, which to me is rather boring and a bit cliche as a similar thing was done by American Vogue in their November issue back in 2001 (zZzZzZzZzZzZz.) Also I just didn't really understand it or see any relevancy. It's not like any of the people they had chosen to personify were being celebrated for any reason, theres no major buzz around them AND it was a mixture of musical artists (Are Mickey J= Michael Jackson, David Bowie, The Beatles, Grace Jones, Patti Smith and I am going to throw a guess at one blondie supposed to be Kurt Cobain.) to actors (Marlon Brando, Marylin Monroe, Audrey Hepburn) and then cartoon characters (AKA: Betty Boop. I am literally like what the fuck.) I thought some of the photography was nice, I liked the blurry, smudgy-ness to the David Bowie portrait but I did not rate the styling much at all and just really don't get the spread. I just kind of find it pointless and see it as a way they thought of filling pages cause they couldn't think of something better to put in without trying to sound to bitchy.
BUT ANYWAY. Always straying from my point or what I set out to write about. I bought the magazine anyway. I thought there could be content to salvage that stupid spread (and plus I am a fashion magazine junkie and I thought "hmmm first issue = possible collectors item = cash mahoneys if I think its that shit.)
So I bought the magazine I liked the cover (cover girl for the first issue is Heather Marks.) she's dressed all in white, which will tie in with the magazine being called Virgine as virgin represents purity, innocence and being untouched, colour wise white represents this. The font is nice, clean and bold, I liked the fact it was gold as it stood out more and I felt popped out more against the black back ground. I also liked the feel of it, its not a glossy I really like the fact its got a matte cover and the paper inside the magazines pretty nice too.
The letter by the Editor in Chief (photographer Ryan Yoon) basically explains the meaning of the word virgin and what he thinks it stands for (which is it being a new beginning.) and then leads on about how the magazine he hopes will show a new dimension to the industry. The thing I found interesting and very sweet was the fact that the publication want to encourage charity work and donations, and that they will put a charity advertisement as their first page of advertising in every issue. Which is interesting as that page is normally a page which a label pays a hell of a lot of money for to be advertised on. There was another thing that got my attention in the letter, there was a bit where Yoon had written they wanted to break the barriers within the industry and that I kind of have a bit of a mixed reaction to:
"Lastly VIRGINE wants to innovate by forming bridges between different industries. Imagine an article written by a fashion model who wants to become an editor or an interview written by the actual photographer who shot the subject. This is the kind of content we are looking for."
Now I dont want to piss on anyones parade but babes. There are models who already do interviews and are editors. Anja rubik has her own magazine and forgive me if my memory doesn't serve me correctly but im sure Karen Elson did an interview with Ricardo Tisci in issue 9 of Lula. We hear of stylists are now trying designing (Formichetti for Mugler, Mad Mens stylist doing a line for Banana Republic.) Designers becoming photographers (Keizer Karl oh. And lets not forget he is an editor of his own magazine and shoots his own campaigns and styles.) celebrities and other industry insiders contributing in ways to other magazines in the way they desire, whether thats writing about up and coming talent etc.
I think the idea Yoon has of breaking down the barriers in the industry and the idea of getting rid of " It's all about who you know in the fashion industry" is a nice one and I would never want to be pessimistic about that view as I think its wonderful someone is trying to crack that, as me being a student trying to get in industry can be hard. But I feel if thats what he wants to achieve he needs to be working with people like myself, students, the future of the industry and the people who are up and coming not people who are established and fancy a career change.
RANT OVER.
Now I'll actually talk about the magazine. It covers art, fashion and music. There are interviews with artist John Baldessari, Photographer Michael James O'Brien and musicians Glass Candy (whom I love.) to name a few. I read a few of the articles but I just couldn't keep to them. I found them a little boring and just felt the questions in some of them were a bit simple there was no point behind the questions as in like a kind of the story/picture you try to create asking the questions. I couldn't see what point the people who wrote the questions were trying to get at. They were questions like "when were you first discovered for modeling?" and yeah there cool but where are you gonna go from that?
But I dont want to just criticise and come across like a proper negative nancy cause I think some of the stuff that this magazine want to do is really cool. Plus there were a couple of things I did really like. There was an interview with designer Azzedine Alaia which I thought was really cool, I really like the fact that the designer is fearless and will just come out with the fact he dont like Karl Lagerfeld or Anna Wintour and they dont like him. Two big heavyweights (like himself.) but I just thought it was genius as a lot of people probably wouldn't do that and he did it with such grace as well. I thought the editorial that went with it was lovely. The back and white images were so strong and I like 'em that much that I'm totez gonna print them off to frame and stick on my bedroom wall when I'm pimping out my new room.
There was another editorial which was quite cool. It was all about joining fashion and art photography together, it was called 'All you can get' Hurr is the spread:
I dont know if its just me over thinking and attempting to be clever but my first thoughts were about pop culture with things such as coca cola and i-pads being featured and then the idea of mass consumption as it's all excessive. But who knows. Probz just me being a twat attempting to be clever. Anywhoo, I look forward to seeing content from the second issue just to see how it has developed from the first as the people working on it are probably just figuring out what they want and dont want in the magazine and are just finding there feet.
