Hi! Not long ago Internet users saw the new cover of February issue of Russian Interview. We are officially amazed. And we are not alone. The cover became so popular that it appeared on Huffington Post and NY Magazine websites. The photo was inspired by Irving Penn's work "Bee on Lips" (1995). For those of you who don't know, Lana del Rey is American singer who at the moment makes short appearences everywhere. That's why there is no doubt in the actuality. And while we scare nice old ladies, who work in magazines' stands, with the question: do they have the February issue of Interview (in the majority of cases, nice old ladies don't know what we're talking about; the official VKontakte group orders to start the search on January 27th), let's relook through the December 2011-January 2012 issue.
Advantages: there are lots of them!
1) We love the format as if it tells right away: "You won't read me in subway or while running errands across the city. You will read me attentively at home. And don't forget to make a bucketful of tea!" The magazine is bigger than A4, but smaller than A3, the quality of paper is high, so as a whole, the magazine is quite heavy.
2) We're happy for Aliona Doletskaya. Without her the world of Russian journalism paled. Also Polina Sokhranova is in her team, which is good. And something curious: the publisher is Bernd Runge who's also on the Board of directors with... Vladislav Doronin. Yes, that millionaire/billionaire (specialized magazines give confused statements) even put an ad of his company in the magazine. Hmmmm...
3) The Editor-at-large is Naomi Campbell. It's not obvious what exactly she did for this issue, but still it's quite cool.
4) Several great interviews. The part about 16 Russian people who succeeded somehow in 2011 is particularly good. Plus, short interviews in the beginning. A certain courage is required to choose people who don't live in between New York and LA and to write about our own.
5) Pleasant fonts, nice page-proof. Everything is readable, the advertisements are not too annoying (a little bit like in Nylon, where the advertising is a part of the magazine).
6) The magazine has its own opinion i.e. it's not just an enumeration of events of the 2 months.
Disadvantages:
1) Yes, Andy Warhol founded the American version of the magazine. Yes, he is a genius, a creator, a master. But when his life is described in details on 59 pages in the worst of forms - Alphabet, our only desire is to tear out these pages and burn them. This section reminded us of one of the Vogue's issues... the one about Naomi Campbell. The idea was perfect, but after 50 pages we felt sick.
2) Daphne Guinness is unquestionably wonderful. However, she's already been on December cover of Russian Haprer's Bazaar. We need new faces! *Interview needs a little bit of industrial espionage.
3) The fact that Peter Brant II interviewed her is a very sad fact. This young dandy is the eldest son of American publisher of Interview magazine - Peter Brant (just look in the "Our contributors"). Please, take away this spoilt child, give him all the pages in American version but save us from him here, in Russian version.
4) The magazine needs to figure if it's elitist and up-market or if it's elitist in terms of quality but every teenager can buy it and cut out his/her favourite pictures for inspiration. Because on the one hand, Interview is all avant-garde, but on the other hand, it has Leonardo DiCaprio on the cover. Then, Bianca Jagger interviews Terence Koh (very cool!) and on the next page is Nicola Formichetti who is talented but mainstream (and it's not something bad, it's just the way things are, Lady Gaga is too popular and will be too popular in 2012). And finally, Interview is print media in Internet age, but even with 100 000 printed copies it's so difficult to find one in Saint-Petersburg. If this is a limited edition (why do they need 100 000 copies then?), why do they have a group in VKontakte and a blog "here we write everything we want to?" then??? In short, we don't ask to put 'cosmo' on its cover, we just ask to determine itself in the media space in order to be able to shoot dozens of beautiful covers in future.
D & P
