EXCLUSIVE: A Magazine Curated By Celebrates 25th Anniversary With Paris Exhibition
PARIS — A Magazine Curated By is celebrating its 25th anniversary with a special issue and an exhibition during Paris Fashion Week.
The magazine will mark the milestone with an event on Thursday at Union de la Jeunesse Internationale, kicking off a three-week-long residence at the experimental cultural center located in the former flagship of the now-defunct French discount clothing chain Tati.
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Initiated in 2000 by Walter Van Beirendonck, the publication started its “Curated By” era in 2004, with a first edition with Martin Margiela.
It has since published issues with guest editors such as Alessandro Michele, Haider Ackermann and Pierpaolo Piccioli, in addition to releasing special print projects with the likes of Gucci, Acne Studios and Jordan Brand.
For its anniversary issue, scheduled for release on Thursday, the 32 past curators contributed fresh material, with Margiela designing the cover featuring a gold metallic balloon in the shape of the letter “A.”
“To see the attachment of all the designers to the magazine was extremely touching,” Fatine Layt, president of A Curated By Group and the magazine’s publisher, told WWD in an interview.
“For me, the gift among gifts was Martin Margiela who, having guest edited the inaugural issue, accepted my request to design the cover, even though he stopped working in fashion years ago,” she added.
The special issue comes with a supplement featuring a series of interviews between designers. Among the pairings are Hussein Chalayan and Olivier Theyskens; Thom Browne and Stephen Jones; Kim Jones and Chitose Abe, and Francesco Risso and Simone Rocha.
They have also lent objects or silhouettes that reflect their creative worlds for “25 Years of Curation and Creation,” an installation designed by the Ciguë agency that will run from Friday to March 30.
“They had the choice to either talk about their work, or about the issue of the magazine they worked on, or things that inspire them or are part of their daily lives,” said Julie Pont, vice president and creative officer of A Curated By Group.
“For example, Yohji Yamamoto told us, ‘OK, I’m going to send you a pack of cigarettes,’ which we thought was very funny,” she added.
Cigarettes, Bambi and a Sock Sweater
Alongside Yamamoto’s pack of Hi-Lites will be other personal objects including Kris Van Assche’s Libertad o Muerte necklace, Martine Sitbon’s Bambi figurine and Rocha’s Astier de Villatte egg cup.
Original designs will include Margiela’s sock sweater, Stephen Jones’ Planetarium hat and a custom Hermès Kelly bag designed by Jun Takahashi. “We also have a teddy bear arriving from Tokyo in business class with someone from Takahashi’s studio,” Pont said.
Some designers opted to show full looks that represent their signature style, including Glenn Martens, Yamamoto, Kim Jones, Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez of Proenza Schouler, Browne, Sitbon, and Luke and Lucie Meier, who recently exited Jil Sander.
Visitors will be able to browse through the magazine’s complete archive in digital form, and listen to a soundtrack specially composed by Studio Ingmar, sampling every piece of music ever mentioned in the publication’s history.
Woven into the mix are excerpts from the curators’ and editors’ letters, narrated by current editor in chief Blake Abbie.
A Curated By Group also plans to organize a series of free public talks at the pop-up venue founded by French Senegalese designer Youssouf Fofana, which houses a cultural space, a clothing store with up-and-coming brands, a cafeteria and a library.
“We wanted to do it somewhere where it makes sense, where culture will be truly appreciated,” said Layt, noting the space is located in the historically mixed neighborhood of Barbès. “Our project is rooted in the idea of community.”
A veteran investment banker, investor and entrepreneur, she took over the magazine owned by her late husband Évence-Charles Coppée three years ago, following the Belgian media executive’s death from cancer.
“He loved this magazine. He spent a lot of time and money relaunching it,” she said. “I promised him that I would take care of it, and I honestly didn’t think I would enjoy it this much.”
Having initially delegated the running of the magazine, she has taken on a more hands-on role.
New Growth Channels
To finance the biannual publication, she has branched out into consulting, with the launch last fall of A Lab Curated By, a new entity that uses AI-powered data intelligence to offer market and trend insights as well as advisory services.
“The most important thing for me is to maintain the independence of the magazine, so we have to find a growth engine that is also completely independent,” Layt explained. “We want to develop our DNA of culture, creativity, independence and counterculture with many different branches.”
One of these is cultural events: A Curated By Group is working with the Théâtre National de Chaillot on an event on April 4 and 5 exploring the relationship between dance and fashion, which will feature a group of young designers selected by the Villa Noailles.
Layt, who serves as “executive in residence” at U.S.-headquartered global investment and merchant bank LionTree, brings to the table years of experience in the creative industries and fashion tech.
“We’re at a pivotal moment in the culturization of fashion,” she said. “Few people have the ability to connect all these different worlds that now gravitate around fashion. I’ve been doing just that for 30 years, because those are the industries I work in, so it’s all happening very organically.”
While she wants to keep the format of the magazine unchanged, Layt intends to make it more international by featuring designers from Asia and the rest of the world. “It must not be limited to the small microcosm of European fashion. I think it really needs to be much broader than that,” she said.
She’s keen to develop a sustainable income model for the publication, which has a circulation of between 5,000 and 10,000 per issue and retails for 35 euros. “Today, the only way to return to profitability is through subscriptions,” Layt said.
Nonetheless, she’s confident in the future of print media, with plans to also grow the publication’s custom content publishing arm, A Magazine Curated For.
“At a time of rampant AI, standardization and globalization, people are hungry for creativity, and creativity remains something very human,” she said. “Paper is back.”
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