In my twin capacities as “biographer” of The Face and curator of last year’s British independent magazine exhibition PRINT!, I’ve been asked publicly and privately for my thoughts on the imminent online relaunch of the title (the plan is that the quarterly physical edition will follow in August, carrying a September dateline).

So here they are:

It’s interesting that the greatest anticipation for the magazine’s return is being generated for and by the fashion community. The PRs, writers, stylists and students who kept the flame alive after the publication’s 2004 demise are now busily banging the drum in response to the relaunch’s oddly one-note Instagram branding exercise, filling their feeds with excited content.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: 032c, Accent, Apartamento, Aperture, Ashley Heath, Bauer, Beauty Papers, Buffalo Zine, Christopher Wylie, Dan Flower, Delayed Gratification, Electronic Sound, Emap, Facebook, Fantastic Man, Fred Perry, Gal-dem, Gucci, Inez & Vinoodh, Interview, Jason Gonsalves, Jeremy Leslie, Jerry Perkins, Liv Siddall, MacGuffin, Migrant Journal, Mojo, Monocle, Mushpit, Nick Logan, No Man’s Land, Orlando, Paris Vogue, Positive News, Q, Riposte, Shamir Sanni, Sheryl Garratt, Stuart Brumfitt, Suspira, System, The Gentlewoman, The Skirt Chronicles, THIIIRD, Twin, Virgil Abloh, Wasted Talent, Weapons Of Reason

Donald Smith, Lloyd Johnson + Chelsea Space assistant Emily Rubner.

Yesterday I met Lloyd Johnson to discuss next spring’s exhibition celebrating his career as Pop’s Pontiff Of Cool (a title I shamefully bestowed upon him in a Mojo feature a decade or so ago).

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: 1999, Chelsea Space, Donald Smith, Emily Dubner, Lloyd Johnson, Mojo

//From top: Stunt rider, Hines Farm motorcycle rodeo + The Atomic Pirates motorcycle club.//

A chat with photographer/Men’s File publisher Nick Clements at the opening of his show Revival –  which looks at the re-enactment of the styles surrounding American bike culture of the 50s for his Royal College Of Art research project – put me in mind of original black motorcycle clubs the Atomic Angels and the Gypsy Pirates.

I first came across them a decade or so ago when covering another academic study, Matthew Donahue’s I’ll Take You There, for Mojo magazine. Donahue’s book focused on a true cultural phenomenon: Hines Farm in Swanton, Ohio, whose owners Frank and Sarah Hines were the first African-Americans in the region to be granted a liquor licence.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Allen Love, Art & Roman Griswald, Atomic Pirates, Big jean Mitchell, Chiquieta, Count Basie, Frank and Sarah Hines, Gypsy Angels, Henry Griffin, Hines Farm, I'll Take You There, Jimmy Reed, John Lee Hooker, Journalism, Little Esther Phillips, Matthew A. Donahue, Mojo, Ohio, Toledo, Valerie Compton