Anja Rubik Never Wants to Get Too Comfortable
While most fashion insiders spent the past week running to and from fashion shows, Anja Rubik—model, perfumer, editor in chief, and now director—was busy launching the latest issue of her magazine, 25. The newest edition, a female-centric, sex-positive exploration of fashion and art, intends to provide a refreshing alternative to erotica’s male gaze. Dubbed “Five Senses,” it focuses on the human sensory experience and its impact on the way we consume and create our culture. Rubik drew on her extensive network for the magazine’s contributors, calling on photographers Inez and Vinoodh and Paola Kudacki, as well as artists Woodkid and Daniel Arsham. Rubik’s creation seems more like a coffee-table book than your average glossy—and that’s the point. We caught up with Rubik to talk artistic collaboration, her view of the future of print media, and the nature of female sexuality.
This issue’s theme is centered around the five senses. What made you want to go in that direction?
It started from a book that I was reading, Stranger in a Strange Land [by Robert A. Heinlein], which is about a character that comes back to Earth from space. The way the senses were described within that novel is what first put the idea in my head. Then when I started to work on a perfume, I began to research the impact of the sense of smell and how it can put us into a state of mind or a mood and I found that fascinating.
Nowadays, everyone is so focused about living in the moment, but the only things that put us there are the connections we have through our senses—what we hear, what we touch. At the same time, we’re so distracted because we over-hear, over-touch, over-see. Our senses are our primary teacher; all inspiration comes from seeing, hearing, and touching.
25 presents a decidedly female view on eroticism. Do you think that is something that’s been missing in media?
I think the approach [here in America] to nudity and to a female body is very strange. It’s either very prudish or very vulgar—there’s something in between that is erotic and sensual, but it often disappears. Either we don’t talk about female sexuality—which creates issues—or we overexpose and over-sexualize. Within the media, there is a tendency to over-sexualize and sensationalize female bodies. I love the idea of going back to a representation that honors the innocent beauty of a women’s body and represents it in a way that is honest. Everyone ought to feel comfortable with their body and know that you can feel sensual and there is nothing wrong with that, that it’s okay for a woman to be sexual and express her sexuality.
Art seems to play a huge role this issue as well.
Daniel Arsham is a big part of Issue 4. I wanted to include him because his work challenges the way we think about objects. He re-creates very basic objects in materials that they would never be made from, or he’ll take something familiar and make it do something it just couldn’t—like a solid wall melting—or creating an optical illusion. At first we had talked about doing something along those lines, but decided it would be interesting to discuss his color blindness. He created a photography project based around colors he would describe, talking about his perception of them and the way he feels they would look if he could see color.
In many ways, this feels a lot more like a book than a traditional magazine.
It’s true, I think the “magazine” will slowly disappear from the title. The idea when I started this was to do something that dealt with the new definition of magazines. It’s difficult to compete with all the information and traffic happening online. In my vision, magazines are turning into more of a collectors item rather than being time-sensitive and disposable. You can’t compete with the speed of the Internet, but you can create something that is more of an experience. Even when it comes to things like the texture of the pages—when you flip through there’s glossy paper, matte, some pages that are just tissue, even a scented bookmark. You want to create something people will hold onto and can go back and look at years from now and still find something interesting.
You recently made your directorial debut. What has it been like stepping behind the camera?
It’s quite funny because I don’t plan these things in advance, it happened in an organic way. We always create a short movie around each issue to explain the topic. I had a very strong idea, and I started to think about who could direct it. I realized that if I brought somebody onboard, I would be on top of them and telling them how to do things. Eventually, I decided to do it so I wouldn’t drive anyone crazy by forcing them to do it my way!
Andreea [Diaconu] was wonderful, and the entire team was great, as well. I thought the post process would be the hardest and least interesting part since I’m so used to working on set and in my eyes that’s where the adrenaline comes from, but it was fascinating. I like to put myself in a world where I don’t know much about it and I have to learn. I don’t like to stay too comfortable for too long; I want to find new challenges.
