Fanpages

Late nineties thrift magazine Cheap Date has been cited by contemporary magazine makers like Char and Bertie of Mushpit as a major inspiration. Last week, Cheap Date founders Kira Jolliffe and Bay Garnett launched a new magazine, Fanpages, with a party at Dover Street Market.

The new magazine comes in the form of a teenage annual or yearbook; a glossy hardback cover contains what the editors describe as ‘a series of especially made one-page fanzines.’ They invited submissions from friends and associates across fashion, art and publishing and including many of those linked to Cheap Date.

It’s a fascinating series of anologue moodboards of obsession, largely artlessly thrown together, hand drawn and un-designed. Among the designers, photographers and celeberities (including Claire Barrow, Nick Knight, Chloe Sevigny) several magazines have contributed Fanpages. Their pages are among the more finished and self-aware contributions. While individuals open up about genuine fandom – Sevigny offers a photo of her teenage bedroom wall of poster heartthrobs, Paul Simonon uses leather jackets and boots to represent his love for Rock n Roll and Allanah Weston channels her horse obsession via jodphurs – the magazines are a little more self-promoting. Fashion binannual Self Service celebrate Le Bouche Rouge (above) with a spread of polaroids that could easily grace its own pages.

Tatler looks back to the heyday of its Sloane Ranger days, rather self-consciously reproducing society snaps of young party goers before they became household names – including Nigella Lawson, and ex-London mayor Boris Johnson (below).

Condé Nast stable-mate Vogue celebrates The Cover Girl via a trawl through its own front cover archives (above). No other magazine can claim such a convincing range of cover girls (Twiggy, Edie, Linda, Kate) but it still seems a little self-serving.

The best of the magazine contributions comes from relative newcomer Polyester, who portray The Filthiest Family Alive in a photograph shot to represent their John Waters originated motto ‘Have faith in your own bad taste’ (above).

The issue opens with an eighties image of a teenage David Bowie fan’s poster-covered bedroom, and ends with a montage of late seventies punk zines (above), reminders respectively of the obsessive nature of fandom and the underlying publishing influence for Fanpages. It adds up to an artfully rich channeling of the fanzine reflex, proving the anologue collaging of obsession is much more powerful than any digital organisation of such material.

The surprise inclusion in the launch issue is British TV journalist Louis Theroux, who despite the presence of the fashion great and good was the undoubted star of the launch party last week, being chased for selfies as models and editors looked on. Kira and Bay are already appealing for submissions for the 2017 edition. It’ll be interesting to see what happens when they reach out further than their immediate friends and contacts.