Paulette Hamilton 
After a hiatus of 15 years, the Face, the style magazine known for its hanging covers that helped launch the careers of Kate Moss, Alexander McQueen, Juergen Teller, and Phoebe Philo, is the lower back. Theface.Com is online now and may be observed by a quarterly magazine in September to reclaim its status as the fashion bible of an era.
“It looks like a great time for the Face to becoming lower back,” says the editor, Stuart Brumfitt. “In these unsure times, we want to create an amusing, clever, unifying place for style-, way of life- and society-loving human beings to enjoy.”
Dan Flower, the mag’s coping with the director, consents about the timing. “When the Face came out the primary time [in 1980], there has been quite a few political upheavals,” he says. He believes it will be the attraction to a newly politically conscious era, including that there are comparisons to be drawn among the 80s and current.
At its height, Face magazine offered 70,000 copies a month. Its covers – presenting the likes of Moss, Bart Simpson, Madonna, McQueen dressed as Joan of Arc, David Beckham or a 13-12 months-old boy dressed as a gangster – ensured it stood out on the newsstand, and it became a month-to-month pop-lifestyle talking point at some point of its 24-yr run up to 2004.
Brumfitt says: “The covers had been so powerful. There’s one cowl for everyone out there. It gave you a picture of favor at that moment in time but more thru person and subculture and way of life.” He is hoping to recapture that feel with the relaunch. You are seeking to emulate the arresting covers, witty writing, and a mixture of content that touched on the A-list, popular culture, present-day affairs, and teens subculture.
“I assume subcultures exist in unexpected methods,” Brumfitt says. “I got a few photos in from the Drake live performance – and manifestly Drake is a huge rap superstar, so it’s now not a lifestyle in the manner you’d count on – but youngsters were pushing thrilling appears. I discover that quite charming.” As for cool, there’s a place for that, too. “The Face had an absolutely cool tune and style, but the actual cool changed into the fact it changed into so open-minded and curious and intelligent and funny,” he says. “That’s nevertheless the best aspect for me.”
Sign up for the Fashion Statement electronic mail
Read more
The relaunch has had mixed reactions. The founder, Nick Logan, turned into supportive, but others were mystified. Paul Gorman, the author of The Story of the Face, turned into skeptical in a Creative Review article, in part criticizing the relaunch for a loss of the authentic’s mindset.
The new ebook aims to attain five million human beings with the aid of the quiet of the year. Theface.Com stocks the distinct pink-and-white branding of the authentic. It launches with a different characteristic with French-British rapper Octavian. Other functions include a verbal exchange between the rapper Ms. Banks and her partner, cruiserweight boxer Lawrence Okolie, and an investigative piece approximately the World Congress of Families, the Christian coalition that held a recent convention in Italy attended by way of some distance-right organizations.
The rights to the Face brand had been offered in 2017 by Wasted Talent, the discern business enterprise of Mixmag and Kerrang!. Flower, who worked at the Face’s sister titles Pop and Arena, desires to get the mag’s move to a hundred,000 – greater than Vanity Fair but much less than Harper’s Bazaar. Revenue will come from online advertising and emblem partnerships; Adidas has already signed up. Flower says there is the choice to work on documentaries with Netflix or Amazon and greater: “perhaps” T-shirts, cellphone covers, and even college publications.