Laetitia Duveau, Curated by Girls
I first came across Curated by Girls at a Riposte event in Berlin over the summer. Editor-in-chief Danielle Pender had invited the blog's co-founder editor, the charming and insightful Laetitia Duveau, to speak about her project to an audience of Riposte fans. I was immediately struck by Laetitia's energy and enthusiasm for promoting emerging artists of all genders, ethnicities, body types and generations on the Curated by Girls platform.
This month marks the first Curated by Girls exhibition in Berlin and the popularity and influence of the blog is rapidly spreading; I've even started to notice illustrators profiled on the site appearing in magazines in a way reminiscent to the beginnings of It's Nice That. We therefore asked Laetitia to share some of the magazines that she looks to when finding talent to profile for us, and to take us through the issues that she finds particularly inclusive and positively provocative. As always, we asked her to pick three issues: a new issue, an old issue and another thing.
A new issue: MC1R, #1
I love magazines, I love the smell of paper and I love to kill time staring at the numerous choice of magazines at the bookstore. My fave place for that in Berlin is Soda. Isabell Hummel, the owner, always has new mags coming in and it’s really cool to see that there are still many people with creative ideas!
I discovered a new German magazine a few weeks ago: MC1R, The Magazine For Redheads. It immediately seduced me! The idea is quite original. Its name MC1R stands for the name of the gene responsible for the colour ginger. I’m not a redhead but I support diversity! And I really liked the idea of a book for and about this special community who only represent like 2% of the population.
Each issue is focused on celebrating redheads, with interviews, beautiful photographs and also a selfie campaign. It’s important to celebrate life in all its diverse aspects.
I met Tristan Rodgers, the editor - a redhead of course - and he told me a bit about his project. He started his magazine spontaneously during a dinner with some of his redhead friends. He was studying lighting design before that, and he had never done a magazine but the concept just came up to him. And he’s doing great! It’s so inspiring!
An old issue: i-D, #210
i-D really has been around since I was a teenager. Time flies.
A friend of mine gave me this old issue of i-D with the name Laetitia. Ok it was not an issue about me, it features cover star Laetitia Casta. It's almost like me though, right?
More seriously I’ve been following i-D for so long, they have always been innovative and still are. It's not just their approach to fashion or trash culture, I discovered so many artists, cultural movements, and youth culture scenes thanks to i-D. And i am really proud to say that since i arrived in Berlin 6 months ago and started Curated By Girls, I received a great support from i-D, which makes this choice even more obvious to me.
And another thing: Le Petit Voyeur
I fell in love with this magazine as soon as I saw it. The indie bi-annual Danish magazine is a real treasure for art lovers. It’s as much a book as a magazine, a piece of art you want to put in your living room! It features an eclectic mix of visual artists from around the world, and the great thing is there are NO ADS! And almost no WORDS. Just beautiful images, pure art, with high quality printing.
We use so many words every day, so Le Petit Voyeur is a breath of fresh air. Oh, and you have to have an issue in your hands, at least once in your life to feel the paper! There are different stocks which make it so nice to touch… and I love the glossy pages. Whenever I need to escape from stress, I just open the magazine and I am transported. It is also great to source it to find photographers to feature as Le Petit Voyeur is all about quality and diversity. The artists inside are curated by Kristian Rosén, the publisher himself.
The mag is biannual and limited to only 1,000 copies. Lucky me, I got mine, which is number 932.