Photographers as an Editor-in-Chief

[fenty]

something for fun, but what (fashion) photographer do y'all think could excel as an EIC for a magazine/publication?

 

[Phuel]

The only photographer proven to be an extremely worthy fashion EIC was Fabien Baron.

Rankin’s Hunger Magazine was passable-- even solid at its best, although rather forgettable as a whole.

Nick Knight has the vast potential with the experience, versatility and diverse talent to helm a publication. Much like Fabien, he’s proven he can straddle the creative and the commercial effortlessly, and still deliver the goods.

 

[Lola701]

The only photographer proven to be an extremely worthy fashion EIC was Fabien Baron.

Rankin’s Hunger Magazine was passable-- even solid at its best, although rather forgettable as a whole.

Nick Knight has the vast potential with the experience, versatility and diverse talent to helm a publication. Much like Fabien, he’s proven he can straddle the creative and the commercial effortlessly, and still deliver the goods.

I would add Gilles Bensimon who despite the fact that he has never been an EIC, was fantastic as a creative director/Head Photographer of ELLE US. He had a lot of power then and certainly helped shape the identity of the magazine.

 

[fenty]

Nick Knight has the vast potential with the experience, versatility and diverse talent to helm a publication. Much like Fabien, he’s proven he can straddle the creative and the commercial effortlessly, and still deliver the goods.

One thing Nick gonna do is give us the content we deserve!! I would love to see him start his own magazine and it be entirely in his own vision

 

[blueorchid]

I would add Gilles Bensimon who despite the fact that he has never been an EIC, was fantastic as a creative director/Head Photographer of ELLE US. He had a lot of power then and certainly helped shape the identity of the magazine.

That also reminds me of Peter Knapp's involvement as artistic director of Elle France throughout the early-mid-1960s and again in the mid 1970s, too.

 

[Phuel]

One thing Nick gonna do is give us the content we deserve!! I would love to see him start his own magazine and it be entirely in his own vision

Besides being such a great talent, Nick is also a very generous, welcoming and humble talent. He’s extremely supportive and encouraging of his entire crew— from veterans to newcomers; from superstars to fresh faces, he treats everyone with the same respect and dignity. That seems like such a simple, straightforward attitude to have, but it’s not for so many. A model I had worked with moved to the UK, and started working on creatives with various new photographers in London to build her network. And rather than being supportive, a photographer told her she had solely ruined his shoot. That sort of illusions of grandeur are unfortunately more common than rare, made more pathetic that these are nobodies, feeling superior to everyone else. Nick’s talent and creative vision, along with his nurturing nature, ideally would produce issue after issue of unleashed high fashion bliss. Odd he never made the effort to produce even a biannual publication under the SHOWStudio banner. And if there’s one mainstream publication that’s ideal and desperately in need of a tidal revival— it’s Numero. Nick would do colossal wonders for it.

I can see the potential of Gilles heading a commercial publication, Lola. However, besides that another commercial fashion publication would be just another drop in the already saturated market, his would be similar, if not the same as Jean-Dominque’s ELLE. French ELLE is solid of course, but what would/could Gilles bring that’s not already solidly produced by French ELLE-- and that’s fresh?

 

[kasper!]

Milan Vukmirovic

 

[Lola701]

I can see the potential of Gilles heading a commercial publication, Lola. However, besides that another commercial fashion publication would be just another drop in the already saturated market, his would be similar, if not the same as Jean-Dominque’s ELLE. French ELLE is solid of course, but what would/could Gilles bring that’s not already solidly produced by French ELLE-- and that’s fresh?

I was more talking about a general view as opposed to « now ».

It’s funny because on paper one could thing that a photographer can be an editor but I think there’s a very important part of being an EIC that is pragmatism, business sense and a vision at large…
You have to be a good curator too. Because ultimately for me the fear of having a fashion photographer as an EIC is to have a magazine much more about photography than « fashion » photography, which means more about the technique, effets de styles than the subject and the meaning of the publication.
Fashion photography can be a bubble…

That’s maybe why I don’t like Numero anymore. It feels very pretentious and about photography sometimes in a very amateurish way but not about fashion and the themes that are linked to fashion.

‘I love Solve Sundsbo’s work for example and his work for Numero has always been very technical but very fashion oriented. It evoked so many things…

@kasper! Milan can do and has done every job possible in fashion. Maybe not model but I think he can ahahahahah!

 

[Phuel]

^^^ Gilles on paper, possesses pragmatism, business sense, and a vision at large. And frankly, it’s professionals like him whom are ideal for the role of EIC— more so in the extremely corporate-driven days. Carine’s Vogue would never make it to the light of days, these days. (I wonder if Franca is still with us, how would her Vogue have evolved to…??? Unfortunately like Emmanuelle, she would likely have been terminated, or left on her own. This era of Vogue has no place for such a highly singular vision of high fashion.

You know, Tom Ford would potentially make a great EIC— with the right team…

@James Oliver: At the height of their very best, Mario, Annie, Meisel and I&V will always remain the pinnacle of high fashion vision. Their best work has secured them honourable places in the fashion parthenon. However, their current work are a matter of… lowering one's expectations while churning out their signatures over and over to the point being tedious, to put it politely. And as EIC, no way LOL Someone like Meisel in his current state, needs the push of an extremely strong team to produce solid work (and even that work is too reminiscent of past glories), like what he’s currently doing for Zara. Left to his own devices…. and backed by a not-so-strong team? …Vogue UK’s shoots are the result.

@kasper!: Milan’s would be an endless churn of naked/semi-naked men LOL His 500+ pages of comp-card effort Fashion For Men is evidence of that. Nice— for a very niche reader, but also too much of a gorgeous thing over and over, can be monotonous.