The British style mag was one of the most influential cultural authorities in the Eighties and Nineties, with everyone from Kate Moss to David Bowie on its cover. Now it’s back, 15 years after folding, published by Wasted Talent who are behind Mixmag and Kerrang! The website launched in April and print copies land on Friday. Here is an exclusive preview.
The faces
There will be four covers, including these starring. Dua Lipa and Harry Styles.
In her interview, London-born Lipa suggests her second album will be disco-heavy — “it would be risky if I wasn’t risky with the next record” — and says there will be “some songs that are happy, some about heartbreak, and some about dealing with your life in public”.
Styles is modest: “The word ‘sexy’ sounds so strange coming out of my mouth,” he tells interviewer Trey Taylor. On sexuality, Styles says he wants “everyone to feel welcome”. As for fashion, “what’s feminine and what’s masculine … there are no lines any more”. Stevie Nicks, Elton John and Gucci designer Alessandro Michele all give odes to Styles.
Appeal
Launching a print magazine might seem risky as publications move online, but editor Stuart Brumfitt believes there are still “hardcore” fans who love buying physical magazines.
“The Face has always had a mixed readership and been a good, rangey magazine covering everything from fashion to sport and politics.” Editions will be quarterly, rather than monthly as before, and they are satisfyingly thick. Print gives scope for “gorgeous photos” and “questions” — The Face’s USPs. “We think curiosity is cool,” says the former i-D features editor.
For him, the nostalgia is personal: as a 17-year-old who was yet to come out, Brumfitt wrote an anonymous letter to The Face in 1999 saying how a feature on gay hip-hop clubs had given him “a glimmer of hope”. He kept all the issues he had bought. When he’d just got the job he stood in front of The Face installation at Coal Drops Yard and tried not to feel too daunted.
Fresh-faced
The logo is the same, but Brumfitt is keen to adapt. The website is “something The Face never did”. The online pace will be slow with lots of audio — an antidote to newsfeed culture.
Order your copy now from theface.com.
