10+ Magazine Is the New Boxed Publication From Fashion Stylist and Publisher Sophia Neophitou
Sophia Neophitou, the editor and publisher behind 10 and 10 Men magazines is launching a new publication, 10+, and the plus is no hyperbole; it’s a boxed magazine-cum-poster series which is housed in a box. Oh, and it’s enormous; a veritable treasure trove of elements to unpack and enjoy. For if you’re going to fly in the face of the current received wisdom about print publishing then you might as well think, and do, big, really big.
Neophitou, who also collaborates with the likes of Roland Mouret, most recently on the book which documented his life and career, took a spare nanosecond while on a trip to Paris to chat about why she decided to launch 10+, storytelling fashion from a different perspective, and the desire to slow down and be more reflective in publishing. It certainly looks like she is onto something. 10+ launches just as Gucci announced it would open a bookstore overseen by the brilliant bookseller Dashwood at its Wooster Street location in New York. Incidentally, while we in the U.S. are enjoying Thanksgiving, she’ll be hosting a party for the first issue at MatchesFashion.com Carlos Place. Luckily it’s spread over several floors. Having seen the size of 10+, the event will need all the space it can get.
What’s 10+ magazine, and why did you launch it?
10+ magazine is an idea that began 20 years ago when I first started my publishing career. With [British fashion critic and writer] Tamsin Blanchard, we published a loose-leaf poster box that was LP-sized; it was more abstract, less fashion. The issues were themed around art, poetry, illustration, music—we’d have people press special vinyl for us to include. This new incarnation . . . it’s a box-a-zine where we explore the interactive nature of a physical dialogue with what we produce. There is a bound magazine, which has interviews, think pieces, lots of magazine elements. And then there is the poster section of the box; huge fold-out photographic conversations around our experiences. That was really born out of wanting to have the capability of having images that you could pull out and put them in a frame and on your wall, or a mood board to inspire you, to transport you, to let your imagination fly. So it was a mashing of those two elements.
It’s interesting that you’ve used this large-scale, lavish format for elements of fashion that maybe are . . . well, overlooked isn’t the right word at all, but it’s certainly not a publication dominated by the twice-yearly ready-to-wear collections.
The dialogue of the 10+ box is about the Cruise collections, jewelry, the couture . . . Even if we already have conversations about those on our digital platforms, this will add another layer. I am the queen of the Snapchat theme; I am always filming, there’s a constant digital dialogue going on. Yet . . . I wanted to celebrate our industry in some new way, focus on the experiences which have enriched [our view of fashion]. Chanel has been giving us these incredible trips for years—the Cuba moment, et cetera—and as more and more brands have followed suit, we wanted to dialogue about that. [As for the] Cruise collections . . . they represent such a big part of what brands offer and what sells—70 or 80 percent, often—but there has been no real print dialogue about them. They can get a bit lost in the digital environment. They’re like smoke; one minute they are there, and then they’re gone. And since we’re coming out in May and November, the boxes are timed to appear when those collections are available to buy.
Well, the speed of everything is so hyper-fast that we do all have fatigue from the turnaround of the collections; it’s all about speed and less about reflection today, for sure.
This [project] is meant to be . . . quieter, more considered. It’s like slow fashion, something that feels more precious. It’s like vinyl: You take it out, you clean it, you carefully put it on your deck. There is no rushing it. 10+ is such a tactile experience, I want to use it to promote a less disposable attitude towards things.
It’s interesting to make this, a publication primarily about fashion experiences, an experience in itself . . .
There is a luxury to it, in the sense of how long it takes to read it, look at it. The boxes are made by the same people who make boxes for Louis Vuitton and Chanel. That was important. You open the box and there is tissue paper, and because of the scale of the posters . . . it’s very physical—you need space to open them all up.
Who are you working with for this first issue?
What I wanted to do was work with people who might see things through different lenses; we have art photographers like Jessica Craig-Martin, Martin Parr, there’s Daniel Arnold, who works for you, too, the incredible Derek Ridgers who recorded so much of club culture back in the ’80s, there’s Tierney Gearon. . . . I wanted to create a very beautiful family portrait of fashion, for this to represent a snapshot in time.
To go deeper into print in our digital age seems almost counterintuitive. But then you look at Gucci launching a bookshop in its Soho store—there does seem to be a desire for the physical object to look at, read, own.
There are newer generations who don’t want disposable, they want print—to feel the paper, the texture; and they’re happy to pay for that, so it can live in their world. It’s the difference between fast and slow fashion. Readers are more discerning now; if they want quick and disposable, they can go online. I was never very much of a Kindle person, I was always very much seduced by a book’s design. It’s important to journalism that we still can run long, in-depth stories; I think we have a responsibility [to do that]. That’s how we will survive at this moment in time when everyone is saying it’s all about digital. In the end, not having print . . . it’s like trying to make a sentence without using a verb.
