Exclusive Preview: The AnOther Man Book

“Style is the answer to everything. Style is the difference, a way of doing, a way of being done.” Jefferson Hack quotes the words of Charles Bukowski in the introduction to the Another Man book, and it is their spirit – matched with the anti-hero element of the man who wrote them – that is at the heart of Another Man magazine.

Man is entirely unique. Over the past decade, under the creative directorship of Alister Mackie, it has set a new course in men’s fashion publishing, eschewing formulaic style guides for richly researched issues inspired by charismatic, intelligent men – each the epitome of when substance and style unites as one. The likes of Lord Byron, Rimbaud, Mick Jagger and Kate Moss are its muses; art, literature, music, philosophy are the inspirations; intelligent, multi-layered, provocative fashion stories are the result.

Here, as Another Man: Men’s Style Stories is published by Rizzoli, we spoke to Mackie, and the magazine’s essayist and interviewer Tim Blanks, to get their thoughts on the alchemy of this very special publication, alongside an exclusive gallery of Mackie's favourite spreads.

Alister Mackie on scrapbooks…
“It’s so much easier for me to show rather than explain. That’s why doing a scrapbook every season is such a good thing, because I can visually put down everything I want to do that season. It helps because I’ve got a map of what I’m into.”

Alister Mackie on the stars of Another Man…
“They’re all anti-heroes. I think that’s always more attractive. They’re always the coolest characters. The gentleman and the savage within.”

Tim Blanks on the mood of Alister Mackie and Another Man…
“A lot of what you do isn’t about tomorrow. It’s about a gorgeous moment, a peak experience… That mood is always in your pictures. It’s a weird sense of recreating experiences you never actually had. I call it the Factory Syndrome, for all the people who’d have given anything to spend time with Andy Warhol at the Factory.”

Alister Mackie on his favourite man…
“It’s Bobby Gillespie. He is an interpretation of the Velvet Underground or Byron. In the 60s, they had that 19th century dandy thing. Even Mick Jagger had a medieval lord stance to him. It's a bit like a vampire movie, isn’t it? Bobby channelling Mick Jagger, John Cale, back to Rimbaud and Byron… it’s like Interview with the Vampire, because it's the same person who keeps coming back in different eras. They really are interpretations of the same character.

Alister Mackie on why now…
"I think we’ve taken risks for a men’s magazine over the years. We’ve depicted men in a challenging way; it’s not just a catalogue of the season’s looks. We’ve taken each season somewhere and built our own story around it. And we wanted to show the process of how it’s come about. It’s an opportunity to say, ‘This is our point of view, and it has been through all the issues of Another Man'."

Another Man: Men's Style Stories is out now, published by Rizzoli.