Plastique (#2) Autumn 2007 : Sara Blomqvist by Sol Sanchez and Boris Ovini

[OlgaKorbut]

continued...



[my scans]

 

[deanlee]

thanks for scanned!
want to see more!

 

[beatrice_neumann]

Love the picture but I can't stand the font, hopefully it's only a PR thing for the website. The black and white format works magic here, the model's lips pop

Yeah, that font is like BAM! Ha.

 

[OlgaKorbut]

Concrete
Photo: Kai Z Feng
Fashion: Brylie Fowler




[my scans]

 

[OlgaKorbut]

continued...




[my scans]

 

[|PerfectTonight|]

I have to get this issue. Thanks Olga for the amazing scans!

 

[Parker007]

Yeah, that font is like BAM! Ha.

The whole issue seems like BAM! Awesome magazine how much does it cost?

 

[Li Ya Fan]

Is there a Plastique #3 on the way, or did this magazine go out of business after just two issues?? I'm wondering because they never finished the site, haven't logged into their myspace since December, and I can't find any info or release dates for upcoming issues. So, does anyone know for sure?

 

[prosperk]

Another one just came out. The Parisian store Colette sold out very quickly.

PK

 

[Plato's_Cave]

^ Would that be the third or fourth issue? I never saw a #3 either, but a whole year seems like quite the gap. Wasn't this originally supposed to be a quarterly mag?

 

[prosperk]

A lot of people in the industry thought that PLASTIQUE was the best thing to come out of London for years. I know I did. Of course, bringing out something really good isn't going to make you any friends, as such. For a start, you'll find your distribution network threatened by other publishers in the business of selling mediocrity and maintaining market share on a nudge-wink basis with their "rivals", rather like gangsters.

PLASTIQUE was always in for a rough ride, especially after Issue #2 came out, which was much stronger than the launch issue. You should have seen the hostility with which the creative director/editor-in-chief was treated by London's female fashion rat pack at shows and soirées in Paris. It was a real measure of how good PLASTIQUE was and how threatened they felt. Of course, the other problem was that the CD/EiC can wear a lot of designers' clothes and look sexy whereas many London stylists-cum-fashion editors are a little too wide and a little too short to get away with it.

Anyone with talent and intelligence can make a nice magazine. The difficulty lies in getting it distributed and also in maintaining consistent advertising sales in order to finance the magazine. No glossy magazine can stand on copy sales alone as a general rule. This brings us back to rivals' dirty tricks. They will lean on fashion houses and other advertisers in various ways, to dissuade them from taking space in the upstart independent. I have even witnessed goons going into independent newsagents in London and intimidating the owners into either not having a certain title on their shelves or hiding it behind rival titles. I daresay that PLASTIQUE was subject to some of this sort of thing. Of course, the magazine distribution network throughout the western world is only a couple of steps away from being a monopoly and some of the larger magazine publishers are controlling shareholders in the larger distribution firms.

Get the picture?

However, PLASTIQUE had other problems after Issue #2 came out. The staff turned up one morning to find that the director of the limited company set up to publish the magazine had closed the company down without any explanation. A decision was taken to keep the magazine alive. Trouble was that they couldn't touch any revenue from Issue #2 as it was payable to the publishing company and so they had to look for alternative funding, which is never an easy task with print media, if you aim to remain independent.

You have to bear in mind that truly independent magazines are very rare, most indies, especially in London, being promotional tools by art directors for art directors...and whichever fashion houses, photographers and stylists they need to stroke in order to maintain their ad campaign revenues. We're just the supporting cast, the saps that buy these exercises in vanity publishing. No names, no packdrill, as they say in the army. But PLASTIQUE is independent. A lot of people, despite supporting them, didn't think they could bring out a third issue. Well, they managed it.

But London really isn't the place for a truly independent glossy fashion mag. London is just an incubator for exportable talent. Forget New York too. In order to stand a chance of nurturing a genuine indy title, as opposed to a magalog-in-disguise or an AD's folly, you really need to be in Paris, working the various rooms and events, charming the real decision-makers of Planet Fashion into ensuring that your mag gets enough paying advertising to make it viable. And that's a full-time job in itself, meaning that you have to do the mag in your spare time...

You see, if it were easy, everyone would be doing it...

Now, instead of getting one person to buy PLASTIQUE and post a few fashion editorials here, why don't you all go out and buy it? If you can't find it, get in touch with the publishers and tell them you can't find it because they're paying someone good money to distribute it. Or get them to send it to you. Support the magazine if you think it's good.

PK

 

[ultramarine]

^ Prosperk, I'm sold .. thanks a lot for insight!

I know you'll find a lot of tfsers who love indie print and are very demandingon any product ... I speak for myself to say I hope Plastique endures all this trouble

 

[Plato's_Cave]

Frankly, I don't think the first two issues had anything new or particularly exciting to offer. It felt rather typical. Still, I'm willing to give new magazines some time, so I will look out for Plastique #3.