Joe McKenna - Stylist

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EGOS & IDS; By Any Other Name, Joe's


By DEGEN PENER
Published: November 22, 1992
Joe's. Simply Joe's. That's all Joe McKenna, a top stylist in the fashion business, is calling his new magazine.
"Bruce Weber said I had to call it Joe's," said Mr. McKenna, who worked with Mr. Weber, the photographer, on the most recent Banana Republic ad campaign.
The editor, publisher and sole force behind Joe's, Mr. McKenna began putting together the fashion and photography magazine last year. Being an insider helped. Mr. Weber photographed Paul Cadmus, the painter, and Steven Meisel shot Wallis Franken, the model. Companies Mr. McKenna has worked with -- like the Gap, Giorgio Armani and Manolo Blahnik -- bought ad space.
Mr. McKenna also got two exclusives. One is a group of photos by Mr. Meisel, Ellen von Unwerth and Paolo Roversi from a book to be published next year on the designs of Azzedine Alaia (shown below with a model). The other is an advertisement for fashions by Mr. Weber, who Mr. McKenna said is starting a line of underwear and swimsuits. (A spokeswoman for Mr. Weber said he was on location and not available for comment.)
"It's a little magazine about everything I ever loved," said Mr. McKenna, who grew up in Glasgow, Scotland, and has worked in New York for six years.
That little magazine, which goes on sale Friday at Rizzoli, Agnes B. and Paul Smith, among other places, will cost $45. Mr. McKenna plans to publish it occasionally.
Although Mr. McKenna gave the magazine his own name, he is loath to talk about himself or his work as a stylist. "I don't want to make it sound like the most important thing in the world," he said. "It's just putting clothes on people and trying to make great pictures."
nytimes.com

 

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No Ordinary Joe

By ARMAND LIMNANDER
Published: August 26, 2007
Flick through any fashion publication from the mid-1990s, and it’s likely to feel about as relevant as an episode of “Sex and the City.” But anyone lucky enough to get their hands on an issue of Joe’s magazine will have a hard time figuring out when it was published. At first glance, its oversize pages look undoubtedly contemporary — there is a long interview with Miuccia Prada, and photo shoots by David Sims, Mario Sorrenti, Craig McDean and Steven Klein. Only after careful inspection is it apparent that the Bruce Weber images of a nude, nubile Kate Moss are pre-rehab; on another page, Naomi Campbell is gently holding a baby rather than clutching a Swarovski-encrusted BlackBerry.
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Magazine photograph by Jens Mortensen
The cover of Issue 1 was as unconventional as its content.

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Bruce Weber
Joe McKenna on location.



The first issue of Joe’s, the brainchild of the stylist Joe McKenna, was published in 1992, and the second in 1998. They have stood the test of time because, unlike the barrage of new magazines that have followed, Joe’s paid little attention to celebrities, and even less to advertiser demands. At the height of the supermodel era, McKenna gave his first cover to the most divine woman of all time — the Virgin Mary, who was depicted looking upward and serenely exhaling a cloud of smoke, presumably from a heavenly roll-up. What publication today would include in its debut a feature on the early-’70s model Wallis Franken (wearing, in one instance, only a couple of strategically placed Band-Aids), a tribute to the actor Dirk Bogarde, a lengthy piece on Tennessee Williams and a conversation with the painter Paul Cadmus?
Only a few thousand copies of each issue were printed, and they rapidly became collectible — on the Internet, a well-thumbed number can currently fetch more than $200. Not bad, considering that McKenna essentially produced the magazine on a whim. “All the photographers I knew wanted to have a space where they would have no restrictions,” he says over runny scrambled eggs at a West Village diner. “It was very easy back then — I just rung up a lot of the designers I knew and asked if they would support the project with an ad. Everyone did, no questions asked.”
Budding publishers should note that this process is usually not as simple. McKenna is not a household name, but he is the quintessential insider, with direct access to some of the biggest names in fashion.
He’s often seen shuffling around in black Levi’s, New Balance sneakers and moth-holed sweaters; but his knowledge of style is encyclopedic,
and though he’s self-deprecating, he is a much-sought-after consultant. Through the years, he has helped define the visual identity of clients like Calvin Klein, Versace, Banana Republic and Jil Sander.
McKenna was raised in Glasgow and the nearby town of Kirkintilloch — not quite the epicenters of glamour — but he identified his passions early on. “I was thinking seriously about clothes when I was 9 or 10,” he says. “I have no idea where that came from — my father was a bookie and my mother a housewife. Whenever I saw a coat in a window, I would start planning what to wear with it.”
A few years later, he began trawling through yard sales with his best friend, who became an early muse. “She was obsessed with magazines that had titles like 19 and Honey,” he says. “We’d go thrift shopping, and I’d try to interpret the looks we had seen for her. Well, sometimes I’d sort of interpret them for myself, too.”
After some success as a child actor (he appeared in the hit British series “Coronation Street”), McKenna headed for London when he was 16, landing small roles in films like “Absolute Beginners.” “Then acting gave me up,” he says simply. He explored a brief musical career, even releasing a record under the name A Cha-Cha at the Opera: “The band was me plus three models pretending to be backup singers.
It was very Euro-disco.” Soon after, he began styling for the Face and writing short fashion articles — in an early piece for the London Times, he described the late Isabella Blow, who was a young fashion-hound-about-town at the time, as “she of the bosom, the bustier, the beet-root-red lips and the braying laugh.”
McKenna moved to New York in 1986, working at Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone, but soon went freelance. His collaborations with Calvin Klein and Bruce Weber, whose sexed-up naturalism had a strong influence on McKenna, yielded some of the most daring images of the time. “I was completely dumbfounded when I first saw Bruce’s pictures,” he remembers. “The people in them were doing athletic activities, which I had assumed models couldn’t do, but they were far too good-looking to be athletes. It was extremely intriguing for me.”
When Joe’s first appeared, it served as a calling card for McKenna, neatly encapsulating his aesthetic. More important, it offered a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the fashion world that other magazines approached with predictable slavishness. In a long discussion between models and editors about the revered Tunisian designer Azzedine Alaïa, Veronica Webb and others revealed how he enjoyed torturing friends with elaborate pranks. Mario Testino captured the inner sanctum of the Vogue editor Anna Wintour, and Jean-Paul Goude accompanied Paolo Roversi’s images of Vanessa Paradis with his impressions of the French singer: “I told her how much she looked like Tweety bird, and she said, ‘You’re not the first one who’s told me but please don’t tell too many people, it could be dangerous!’ ”
nytimes.com
part 1

 

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For a fashion publication, Joe’s paid very little attention to clothes, and sometimes none at all. In Issue 1, Bruce Weber’s shoot of Keith and Derrick Brewer — one of the most controversial of Weber’s career — shows the nude, adolescent blond twins interacting in a way that suggests their special bond transcends fraternal empathy. In Issue 2, a beauty portfolio by Mario Sorrenti opens with a shot of the fashion editor Grace Coddington’s unruly ginger mane, followed by a roster of fair-skinned redheads au naturel. (The model Maggie Rizer gamely sports what is possibly the most severe sunburn ever captured on film.) There is practically no retouching throughout: even an unruly pimple on a David Sims close-up of a young boy’s face is not excised.

Magazine photograph by Jens Mortensen
A spread by Steven Meisel.

Magazine photograph by Jens Mortensen
Kirsten Owen's model look.

“We didn’t fool around with the images much,” says the art director Sam Shahid, who designed the layouts for Joe’s. “This magazine didn’t have to worry about what anyone thought, so we could focus on the quality of the pictures rather than what was shown in them.
It was a luxury to be able to do exactly what we wanted, with no compromises.”
McKenna is still interested in side projects — he has a stand at London’s Dover Street Market, where he sells Weberbilt, Bruce Weber’s line of board shorts, shirts and windbreakers, as well as T-shirts created with collaborators like the photographers Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin and the graphic design agency M/M Paris. Last year, McKenna found a box of Joe’s lying around and put them up for sale at the stand — they quickly sold out. Which makes one wonder, is a third issue a possibility?
“I’d love to do another one, but nowadays there are more magazines asking for support, and advertisers always expect something in return,” McKenna says. “So I wouldn’t want to finance Joe’s with ads. It would only work if someone sponsored the whole thing. Maybe we should run a little sub-paragraph underneath this article saying, ‘If anyone has extra cash and would like to contribute towards Joe’s No. 3, please get in touch.’ ”
part 2

 

[BerlinRocks]

^thanks a lot.....
who shooted the last photo???
and second photo??? (Steven Klein for the second?)

 

[Pedro]

Ignoring the cover, the first 2 photos are from David Sims spread, Karen Elson & nude boy are from Sorrenti beauty portfolio, and the last is from Steven Klein spread.

 

[Schneider_Méli]

From the recent issue of Fantastic Man








[my scans]

 

[BerlinRocks]

he's done a lot in Vogue Paris Nov.2007
since he's now a consultant... for some months already...

 

[Schneider_Méli]

V Magazine
Fall Preview
"Before and After"
P: Inez + Vinoodh
Stylist: Joe McKenna
{pictures are out of order i believe}

 

[Schneider_Méli]

 

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[Schneider_Méli]

 

[Schneider_Méli]

 

[Schneider_Méli]

 

[Schneider_Méli]

 

[Schneider_Méli]

all scans mine.

sorry out of order and such

 

[BerlinRocks]

Self Service
Indulge in essential style by David Armstrong
model : Kurt




{scanned by berlinrocks}

 

[MissMagAddict]

Joe McKenna has styled the Pepe Jeans Spring Campaign shot by David Sims
source | wwd november 27, 2007

ASHTON'S NEW JEANS: Ashton Kutcher is going back to his roots — and replacing Sienna Miller along the way. After getting his start as a Calvin Klein model, Kutcher has now been tapped as the face of Madrid-based denim brand Pepe Jeans London through fall. The actor will make his debut for Pepe in the brand's spring campaign, which was shot by David Sims in New York, and styled by Joe McKenna. Kutcher replaces Miller as the face of the brand, and he will share the spring campaign with model Daria Werbowy, who is contracted to Pepe for one season only.

 

[SnejanaIsMyMuse]

Does anyone have copies of "Joe's Magazine" from 1992 or 1998?

I want them, he should make a new installment I think.

 

[wheneveriwakeup]

Joe's newest editorial in V magazine is absolutely mind-blowing. I was speechless upon looking at it.

 

[BerlinRocks]

Does anyone have copies of "Joe's Magazine" from 1992 or 1998?

I want them, he should make a new installment I think.

I think Pedro posted some images from it somewhere here...
guess he has them...