Link to the BBC story is in the first comment.
Was anyone a fan of the mag/regular purchaser during the peak years?
The Face – an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery
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…and the link – The Face: Celebrating ‘most influential’ magazine
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62z5glw602o
I wasn’t a devotee but I bought it occasionally and flicked through it if it was around. I’ll go to the exhibition if I’m in London. Worth it for that Kylie photo. It’s on till 18th May do there’s a good chance I’ll make it.
Miranda Sawyer mentions this exhibition on the latest episode of the Giddy Carousel Of Pop podcast.
I bought a few early issues but realised fairly quickly that it wasn’t for me
Bought it for the first year or so, but – and my memory might be wrong – the whole New Romantic, Robert Elms, Londoncentric thing turned me off it. Never to return.
Essential reading on the 45 minute bus ride to Art College 80/81, I was studying graphic design and the magazine taught me more about style, typography and layout than any of the lecturers did.
Neville Brody was mentioned in the New Years Honours list…I daresay a lot of designers (and design student) watched with interest to see what he was doing.
Still essential reading for my Graphic Art studying pal in 1988-89.
I remember there was a lot of hype around its launch and I initially bought it as the editor was Nick Logan. But, like others here, I didn’t stick with it.
this exhibition is very tempting might make a weekend of it and visit the Leigh Bowery exhibition at Tate Modern as well which opens on Thursday of this week
Got a couple of unexpected trips to London coming up.
Far, far more likely to buy a full Tottenham replica kit and wear it to a Tottenham game than to go to this… especially now the magic words – ‘Miranda’ and ‘Sawyer’ – have been posited.
Thanks for the warning.
My brother-in-law John used to take photos for them – as a result I recall chatting with a bloke called Rob who came round to John’s Mum’s house in Bristol one weekend, to spray some backdrops, and there was another weekend when the living room was full of dazzlingly pretty models in very small amounts of clothing. The paint spray guy was also known as 3D, and one of the models ended up hanging around with a Libertine for a while. I think John still has a massive pile of Face back-issues somewhere, though his photography took off into travel directions shortly after that time.
Some of the extended writing was quite good, but the fashion prannets, “art”, and cooler-than-you stuff from Robert Elms and related parties stuck in my craw. I suspect it was not directed to me.
I’m pleased to say that the photo of Kylie in mirror shades that is heavily featured in the promotion of this exhibition is on one of my most treasured t-shirts.
I’m jealous.
I liked it early on when there was a bit more focus on music and music related style “tribes” but once it started banging on about high fashion and fashion week etc, I lost interest. However, in defence of the accusations of a somewhat up itself Londoncentric bias and elitism, I sometimes think (to use the oft quoted example) Robert Elms’ sense of humour gets a bit lost…his book “The Way We Wore” is a really good read and is a genuinely engaging look at being young, working class and being obsessed with how you look. There are quite a few of us on this site who would have felt similar. Granted, his occasionally a bit too in your face oneupmanship might grate with some, but it’s really only intended in the same way as rival football team crowds chanting at each other, poking fun and taking the piss.
I used to look forward to getting it. At its best, in the mid to late 80s, it usually showcased an interesting variety of idiosyncratic articles on pop and cultural figures and on-trend issues that hasn’t been matched since, though The Word had a somewhat similar independent- minded and non-corporate approach to who and what was in each article.
I remember this Buffalo issue, that was quite influential and swept together fashion and Pop through figures like Neneh Cherry and Malcolm Maclaren. At the time, where else would you get Andy Warhol, Mel Smith, The Pogues, Alison Moyet and Lovers Rock given equal billing and shared magazine space? And Brazil was quite the cult film at the time.
The pictures in the issues were often bold and challenging, portraying popular cultural figures in very punk images, which felt like art. I decorated my bedroom with my favourites, including a rather flowing origami outfit from Issey Miyake. I did like the pretence and artifice of it, as well as its attempts, like the NME (which I’m sure it challenged and influenced in that era – hence Corbijn and other photographers often featuring in the inkie), to feature big, serious issues.
It seemed to successfully negotiate the tightrope between cool and commerce, radical chic and consumerism for several years. But then it fell into the same safe advertisement-friendly slot as GQ and Esquire and became very boring indeed.
Here is an article featuring some of the covers I still remember with great fondness.
https://sputnik.uk.com/the-face-magazine/
Flaws and failings aside, around the time of New Order’s peerless Lowlife and Brotherhood, it was an absolute delight to see on the newsagent’s shelves, and make new discoveries each month.
Felix out of Madonna’s video and The Tube on that cover. He went on to write songs for The Sugarbabes, Amy Winehouse, Sia and Kylie Monogue among others.
Read The Face right through the 90s and really enjoyed it.
It seemed to belong to its own discrete genre of magazine (not quite fashion, not quite music, not quite a men’s mag, etc), which granted it license to cast its net a little more broadly in terms of subject matter.
My overriding recollection is picking up each issue not entirely sure what it would contain, but knowing that there would reliably be provocation and entertainment. I will definitely go check out the exhibition, any excuse to visit the NPG.
The Face was an occasional buy. It always looked fantastic and clearly significantly influential. I always found the writing to be a bit hit or miss – for every good piece, there was some pretentious writing that sounded intelligent until you thought about it and realised that it didn’t really bear thinking about,
I liked it. I bought the first issue and continued buying it out of loyalty for much longer than I should have. I wanted music papers and magazines to inform me about records and bands that I should check out. It did both for a few years and I enjoyed the design too.