For the first edition of AnOther Magazine, twelve and a half years and twenty five issues ago, we took as our founding tenet the ideals of new love, new life and new inspiration
For the first edition of AnOther Magazine, twelve and a half years and twenty five issues ago, we took as our founding tenet the ideals of new love, new life and new inspiration. Adam and Eve, as shot by Nick Knight and played by Zora and Olivier, were our cover couple and our mission was "to keep a sense of romance alive in a world where ideals are often replaced by deals, and desire easily subverted by greed."
Here, in the first of our retrospective posts celebrating all twenty five issues of AnOther, we take a look at Editor-In-Chief Jefferson Hack's manifesto for the magazine back in 2001.
AnOther Magazine: another point of intervention, another set of discoveries, another way of looking at things, another 30 minutes of your time, another kiss, another curious idea that just came to mind, another reason to get out of bed in the morning, another sense of déjá vu, another chance to do it all over again next season. Another damn fine day.
We wish our lives to be less complicated and more spiritually rewarding yet we are creatures of extremes. Taken to habit and spurred by random acts of chaos. We laugh when we should cry and make others cry when we should make them happy. We are silly and smart, selfish and caring, the modern metaphysical children of Adam and Eve. This is our Original Sin. Our humanity, our right to fuck up and pick up the pieces. To learn as we go along and make the same mistakes again. To lose ourselves in the moment and put things off for another day.
"Another point of intervention, another set of discoveries, another way of looking at things, another 30 minutes of your time, another kiss, another curious idea that just came to mind..."
AnOther Magazine explores these themes through the writing, fashion, photography and vision of its contributors. The cover of this issue by Nick Knight shows two young lovers in a personal embrace. To show real love, in a real situation with real people is something few contemporary magazines would attempt or even think to do. That’s our cover statement for this season: to keep a sense of romance alive in a world where ideals are often replaced by deals, and desire easily subverted by greed. It is about an attitude that carries through the fashion and literature to influence and effect contemporary thinking. There is little time in our culture to allow surprises, radical ideas and thoughts to emerge. We are moving, consuming and communication so fast that it takes real control to slow down rather than just go with the flow. Recessions, wars, global and personal disasters continue, and often lives remain uninterrupted. As our culture accelerates and people jump on the latest money-go-round, we see a uniformity of opinions and ideas, a homogenisation of theories, images and fashion. It’s as if the faster things become the smaller the sphere of reference revealed.
AnOther Magazine is not going to change the world we live in. It exists to expand that sphere of reference, to show that there is more to our lifestyles than the obvious. That there is a need to slow down and assess, as much as there is a desire for constant entertainment. AnOther Magazine juxtaposes these extremes in a magazine “for men and women”, a magazine “for people”.
AnOther Magazine traverses a continental style divide. Its writers and photographers come from all over the world. Some of them are visionaries whose names you may recognise, others are emergent protagonists in the media landscape. These are our protagonists; producing images you will want to rip out and stick on your wall, articles you will want to highlight and keep to re-read. They have come together to fire inspiration and action, style and reflection into the ether; to kick through our daily realities and fuel the fantasies of a generation caught in the slipstream of the extreme.
Jefferson Hack, Editor-in-Chief
For the full article, and for all 25 issues in the AnOther Magazine archive, visit Exact Editions.
