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.
//The first vitrine contains original copies of Blast 2 (1915), Crash! 1 (1997) and gal-dem 2 (2017). Photo: @hellenelleliang////Enjoying browsing the magazines on the PRINT! newsstand. Photo: @jasonthien////Contributor Alpa Depani talking about her zine Romp with members of the New Architecture Writers group. Photo: @paul_g0rm4n//
As well as the Newsstand (see last post), PRINT! Tearing It Up features three listening booths where visitors to the exhibition can hear podcasts featuring some of the greats of British independent magazine publishing.
//Visitors to the show browse Newsstand magazines this week. Photo: Somerset House Trust////The kiosk on which our Newsstand is based was built for the news vendor at Sloane Square station 30-odd years ago//
//A Prayer For Madonna, The Face, September 1983. Photography: Kate Simon, text: James Truman. This was the superstar’s first substantial UK press appearance, five months ahead of her British live debut//
Of the many talented photographers who provided The Face with its visual verve, Kate Simon was uniquely positioned to chronicle the cutting edge cultural developments in New York in the 1980s.
Simon had spent much of the previous decade in London, photographing musicians and performers from Bob Marley and David Bowie to the Sex Pistols and The Clash (whose debut album features her striking portrait of Strummer, Jones and Simonon). Crucially, Simon’s work also appeared in the New Musical Express during The Face founder Nick Logan’s editorship of the music paper.
//The cover of the February 1982 issue of The Face featuring Sheila Rock’s striking image of Siouxsie Sioux at the Sonos store in Earlham Street. Photo: Lawrence Ajayi////Photo: Lawrence Ajayi////Photo: Lawrence Ajayi//
The Face magazine was firmly rooted in central London and like its host city it was inclusive, outward-looking, multi-cultural and diverse. While it expressed all the best aspects of creative London it was never parochial but simultaneously intent on making the connections to cities and sub cultures around the country and around the world.
Based throughout the 1980s and 90s in the enclaves around Carnaby Street, Mortimer Street, Marylebone and Clerkenwell, the magazine and its writers, designers, photographers and stylists became fundamental to the scenes they documented.
From Soho’s “The Cult With No Name” through rare groove, rave and British soul to Britpop, Brit Art and beyond, The Face was at the epicentre of the capital’s youth, music, fashion, art, design and club cultures.
At a time when the area’s venues and nightlife are being challenged by regulation, regeneration and urban development, this exhibition and companion events aim not only to shine a light on central London’s cultural significance but also highlight a time when a magazine could change the world.
Perhaps the greatest exemplars of The Face’s disruptive London attitude were cover stars such as John Lydon, Malcolm McLaren, George Michael and Suede as well as Kate from Croydon and Naomi from Streatham, who toppled the glamazons ruling fashion and endure as emblems of London street style and suss.
The Face: It was a London thing.
My exhibition about The Face magazine’s roots in, and relationship to, London is currently being staged at home leisure specialist Sonos’ newest store, in Earlham Street, Seven Dials.
//Athenaeum has done the book proud with this splendid window display. Photo: Athenaeum//
The Story Of The Face is coming to Amsterdam on Friday (December 15).
In an event at the city’s NewWerktheater organised by leading Netherlands bookshop Athenaeum Nieuwscentrum, I’ll be making a visual presentation about the magazine that changed culture.
Afterwards I’ll talk about the enduring influence of The Face and my new book The Story Of The Face with Gert Jonkers, founder of Butt and Fantastic Man and publisher of The Gentlewoman and COS Magazine.
//John Lydon. From The Face issue 8, December 1980. Photo: Sheila Rock////Grace Jones. From The Face issue 6, October 1980. Main photo: Jill Furmanovsky////Divine. From The Face issue 9, January 1981. Photo: Sheila Rock//
Here’s a selection of articles for early issues of The Face by veteran music journalist/author (and my old mucker) Chris Salewicz to mark the fact that he and I will be in conversation about my new book The Story Of The Face at leading south London independent bookshop Bookseller Crow on Tuesday evening (November 28).
