The media hoo-ha that met Stefano Tonchi’s move to W in the latter part of 2010 demonstrated two things: (a) that editors in chief of fashion titles really do enjoy mainstream celebrity status these days; and (b) that the combination of the magazine and Tonchi is an irresistibly powerful package. Which is why, to whispers of ‘the new Anna Wintour!’, a gaggle of cameras and microphones shadowed his every move at the September shows. Expectations were high for this highly respected editor, whose career in publishing began at the tender age of 17 when he created a homemade music publication (he describes it as a ‘pseudo-magazine’) with a school friend. In his twenties he set up a Face-like style magazine in Florence which he edited and art directed called Westuff, and in the late Nineties contributed to the renaissance of Esquire as its fashion creative director. During his revolutionary spell at the New York Times he launched a batch of new titles, including the highly regarded T magazine in 2004, as well as its award-winning online companion site. Hopes are high that he can bring the same revitalising energy to W.

Written by Elizabeth von Guttman
and Alexia Niedzielski

Portrait by Alex Salinas

Not a lot of people know this, but at one point in the mid-Nineties you were the creative director of J. Crew. How did that come about?

Yes, that was an interesting in-between experience. When I moved to the States, I wanted to learn as much as possible about mainstream America. I think if you come to this country, you have to experience the mass-market, and you know, you cannot be any more ‘Americana’ than J. Crew; I don’t even think Ralph Lauren was more ‘Americana’ than J. Crew. I had always worked on niche publications, like Italian Vogue ande, magazines which had the best photographers and writers but that were really meant for insiders and had a certain kind of snobbery. So, in coming to America, I tried not to have that attitude. At the time, Emily Woods was taking the company over from her father, who founded J. Crew. She was moving the brand in a new direction and she talked about the catalogues as if they were books or magazines, which she wanted to have a more editorial perspective.

Is it something you want to re-explore, working with a brand in the future?
I’m not sure — you never know where you will end up or where life will take you. At J. Crew, I never had any involvement in designing the clothes, that’s something that I have no interest in. I’ve been an editor, fashion editor and a stylist but unlike some other editors or stylists, I’ve never thought I was a designer. Just because you like clothes or you wear them well, it doesn’t mean that you are good designer; there are enough designers out there.

There’s been a lot of attention over your move to W. Was it difficult to leave T after creating a bit of a family there?
It was difficult. I created this group of magazines at the New York Times and they were really my little babies, my creatures. I had put together a team of people I really enjoyed spending time with and I think there was a certain kind of joy in the magazine and website that was apparent to the reader. At the end, it was also something I created for myself and not for somebody else, in terms of who the reader was and that’s always a good way to start, especially if you want to live a happy life.

Your move to W was so widely documented. It seems like the world has never had such a curiosity about the fashion industry. What do you make of that?
Fashion has never been as popular as it is today and that’s mainly because as a business it has become so powerful. There are such large budgets involved now and brands can really influence the way people think and behave. Some fashion designers are more influential than film directors or musicians but they don’t realise it. Tom Ford has had an incredible influence on society through his fashion. He thinks now he is a real artist because he is a film director, but actually he did something very serious as a fashion designer, not just through his clothes but through his campaigns and his conduct. He really pushed the boundaries; he was out there and he made that kind of ‘double-sexuality’ accepted, as well as bringing back a love of modernism. At the same time, it looks like fashion is becoming less and less creative. That’s kind of the contradiction: as fashion becomes more and more popular, it’s less creative because there is really less space for strange or original ideas in such a large system. I think it’s probably a growing crisis. It’s not just that designers today are less creative than they used to be — the environment is less creative.

Who do you think are now the most creative designers out there?
I like people who do their own thing and stick to it. I like Raf Simons very much. His work is very conceptual and considered: the idea comes before the clothes. I love Miuccia Prada; when you think about how big Prada is, how many stores they have but they still keep us interested in what they do and they take risks. And then you have Nicolas Ghesquière, Stefano Pilati, Alber Elbaz — they’re all very interesting designers with their own point of view.

There are so many shows at fashion week now, and you’ve said that you don’t think there should be as many. Do you think brands will continue to show collections in this traditional way?
I think they’re going to use more plat-forms. Still, the experience is unique — it’s an experience that you live and you hear and you touch and you sweat. We still go to the fashion show because the experience you get there really cannot be substituted by looking at pictures on a website. But I do think there are too many and some are really unnecessary. I think there should only be shows when there is something to show. And then you do a lot of technical presentations that are really for buyers and the people who are there to sell the clothes, and then you have a lot of other kind of events that can focus on special areas of the production. To have four full shows a year is ridiculous I think. At the same time, they should do as many showroom presentations as they need — that’s not the problem. It’s business. They have to put new stuff in the stores, because going to the stores is part of the entertainment experience. I mean, it’s what young people see as a form of sport, somehow.

Credited with restoring proper journalistic values to fashion publishing, there’s little doubt that since its conception in 1999, o32c has set the most significant editorial agenda since The Face. Though the magazine’s creative director, editor-in-chief and co-founder, Joerg Koch, prefers to describe its editorial approach – in-depth, investigative, and founded on a promiscuous curiosity – as more like ‘Vanity Fair on crack’.

Written by Rana Toofanian

Portrait by Thomas Lohr

At a time in which everyone is questioning the relevance of print publishing, 032c doesn’t seem to be suffering, largely because it actually has something to say. With unparalleled watershed and watercooler features like ‘Who is Steven Miesel?’ (an exclusive interview with Miesel featuring a 16-page foldout archive of all his Vogue Italia covers spanning 1988 to 2008) or ‘Hip, Hop, You Don’t Stop’ (a detailed portrait of the legendary German publisher Gerhard Stiedl), 032c interviews all the people you’ve ever wanted to know about, only before you’ve even realised it. The quality and intellectual rigour of its features never underestimates the intelligence of its readership – where else would you find ‘A Structural Analysis of Vogue Paris’? — and visually the magazine is equally daring, championing innovative young photographers such as Danko Steiner and Daniel Sannwald. And, with 032c’s archive of back issues now available to read online, a comprehensive interactive source of wisdom, the originality and scope of Koch’s editorial approach is out there for all to witness.

Though the magazine originates from Berlin, is the city still integral to its production and development? Is 032c dependent editorially, philosophically and aesthetically on Berlin?

032c was founded in Berlin and would be very different if it came from somewhere else. The history of the city has had a very strong impact on the magazine and has defined its core aesthetics. At this point, however, it could really be produced anywhere. This is just where we live!

You’ve commented that 032c was conceived out of an excitement about Berlin from outside Germany — ‘a blaze of enthusiasm’ and a desire to deconstruct that, to say ‘actually, it’s not that great’. Why do you think people were, and arguably still are, so fascinated by Berlin,  in particular, as a centre for creativity? And, is the perception of Berlin as a playground for artists and creatives, who migrated there because of the cheap rents and studio space, still valid?

In the 1990s there had been all these hyped predictions about Berlin and the magazine was really born out of a sceptism against these meglomaniacal projections. Of course, a bankrupt city like Berlin is a global magnet for artists and creatives: the rent is low, the standard of living is high and you are right in the heart of Europe. But there is more to Berlin than attractive studio rents and a vibrant party scene. The city is completely dominated by its layered history and as a publication we are as committed to excavating the influences of the past as we are to showcasing the new. However, the downside of this cultural richness is that that when it comes to business, you have to look abroad — a factor that keeps us invested in an international cultural community. If you care about ideas, then it seems to me more relevant to be at the site of production than at the site of sale which is somewhere else.

Does the enduring appeal of Berlin derive from the fact that it has not become the affluent European capital people expected?

The enduring appeal of Berlin is that it does not really have an establishment. You can move here and within weeks become completely intergrated into the social fabric of the city — it’s incredibly open in this regard.

The magazine was always meant as a Trojan horse for a bigger project, like a website, as well as a platform for other endeavours, commercial jobs and exhibitions. How and why has this changed over the years?

We never really wanted to be involved with the publishing industry; we wanted to do a diverse range of projects, 032c being one of them. As the magazine began to grow and grow, however, we arrived at this state of almost pathological self-neglect — we had never really cared for the magazine commercially. This changed two or three years ago when we realised what an incredible opportunity 032c actually is in terms of advertising and a catalyst for other projects. We began to see that there was a very distinct creative community that we were speaking to and engaging with that was in some ways defining the magazine. Our exhibitions and events like the Société de 032c nights, as well as our website all provide that additional platform for creative engagement with that community, as well as expanding it.

By taking its readers very seriously, 032c has become a powerful signifier. How do you perceive your readers and what do you think 032c means to them?

In some ways, the reader is seen as a part of the 032c team. In the beginning, our readership and our base of contributors literally fed each other, and to some extent this outlook still remains in the spirit of the magazine. When you open up copy of the magazine, you’re stepping into the 032c community. 032c means different things to different people. It’s true that it has become somewhat of a symbol among a certain socially ambitious set. At the same time, there is a large core group of readers that couldn’t care less about the exclusive cachet the magazine may convey — they seek us out for our stories and ideas and 032c’s continued willingness to experiment in terms of content, both visual and textual. There are probably readers that buy 032c for completely different reasons. We can’t really know, but we just hope that we meet and exceed their curiosity, no matter how it’s motivated. Editorially, we’re not interested in responding to our audience’s expectations; we’re interested in surprising, in raising the bar and opening people’s eyes to interests they might not have realised they had.

You once said: ‘Most of the things we do are a refusal of the existing situation.’ Can you say a bit about what you meant by this, in terms of both editorial and creative direction for the magazine?

This goes back to our philosophy that the most important decisions are the things you decide not to do, not what you decide to do, which results in a much more directional product.

For a few years now, people have commented that there is an overall decline in creativity in fashion and there’s a lot of anxiety around whether young generations are capable of producing surprises. Is the idea that fashion can no longer produce anything original, or any ‘shocks of the new’, justified?

It’s just whining. What’s stopping them from creating something exciting? Work, don’t cry. I am optimistic, and I don’t subscribe to this idea of cultural or creative decline. Our generation has so many opportunities, so many possibilities for creation and communication, and yet seems to be intimidated by these new developments at the same time. The internet has accelerated everything; it has disrupted every industry. I would prefer to see this as an exciting and productive challenge and not the harbinger of the end of everything. This is history in the making: it is the start of something new.

In a recent interview with Cathy Horyn, you commented: ‘It’s people in the industry. I don’t think you will ever meet so many unhappy people. People in the fashion industry are really contaminated with bad habits. A certain human kindness evaporates once you make a career in fashion.’ Why do think people in the fashion industry are as you say they are? Why is fashion more ruthless than other creative industries?

Oh, that statement was said with a Teutonic tongue-in-cheekiness that wasn’t really conveyed on paper. I am not a masochist; I confess to enjoying fashion to the fullest. I simply seek to avoid the unhappy or impolite people who come with the territory. Structurally, the fashion system is quite antiquated because it is still based on this 19th-century idea of a heroic creative genius on top of this very hierarchical human machine — so you have the neurosis that comes along with the art industry, but with the added pressures of Big Business. The results are insecurity, vanity, and unproductive power-plays; often it operates on the ‘kiss-up, kick-down’ principle. That said, there is no question that the fashion industry produces some of the most significant visual material today, that culturally it is the most impactful of the creative industries, and that some truly incredible minds work there.

Which individuals do you percieve as making the most forward-thinking creative contributions to the fashion industry today?

This might not be the world’s most original answer, but I’m always eager to see the work of Nicolas Ghesquière, Raf Simons and Miuccia Prada.

Do you think it’s possible to be avant-garde and commercial? Or are art and commerce mutually exclusive?

Today, anyone who is making work and considers themselves to be ‘avant-garde’ is most likely funded by a liquor company, no? What I mean is that this is notion of artist’s disregarding the commercial is simply rhetorical. For me the most avant-garde, or simply the most creative act these days is to develop business models that sustain intelligent and original content, specifically in a digitised world. The question is, how is ‘creative freedom’ possible when everything is monetised? Rather than resisting that question under the premise that art and money are somehow at odds, what is more interesting is to attempt to answer it.

A look inside Industrie Issue 3

Available now at select newsstands and retailers across the world

Superstar photography duo Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott get in front of the camera for the first time in an in-depth interview and exclusive retrospective

Photographed by Mert & Marcus

Marc Jacobs comes out as Miuccia Maniac – modelling his own and Katie Grand’s personal Prada collection

Photographed by Manuela Pavesi

Styled by Katie Grand

The Brant Boys, Prince of New York fashion, prove that you’re never too young to be a style icon

Photographed by Patrick Demarchelier

Styled by Sally Lyndley

The creative genius, Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, lets us into his personal archive, discussing his life and career in this unique interview

Photographed by Sharif Hamza

Illustrations by Jean-Charles de Castelbajac

Styled by Veronique Didry

AVAILABLE W/C MAY 9TH AT SELECT NEWSSTANDS AND RETAILERS ACROSS THE WORLD