Suki//

Up and coming model Suki Waterhouse was recommended to me by my editor Naomi Mdudu, after explaining the idea behind our zine she thought she would be perfect to feature, and I completely agree. She has been recently optioned by the renowned David Sims (who has shot for the likes of Vogue Paris, Calvin Klein, Burberry and Kate Moss for Longchamp), as well as catching the eye and working extensively with Rankin, one of my favourite photographers. I've contacted Union Models so fingers crossed we'll get an interview, as I think her aesthetic would be perfect for the 'Sex, Drugs and Rock n Roll' issue.

Nic.

Photos courtesy of Union Model Management and The Fash Pack

3D//

Because we'd like to keep the content of our magazine to our own work as far as is possible, we've been discussing possible photo shoots. Amy wants to do a shoot in the style of the 3D editorials that have become popular of late, so I've compiled a few shoots that I find inspirational for the shoot. (Click on the images to view them in large).

It would be pretty cool if we could learn how to make a shoot 3D, and provide 3D glasses with our first issue, but I'm not sure how difficult/expensive this is.

Isabeli Fontana by Jacques Dequeker - Vogue Mexico

Jacques Dequeker for The KTRL Collective

Carol Ribeira by Jacques Dequeker - The KTRL Collective

Emily Layla Lovaine

Nic.

Kika Rose//

Because at The Factory we love all aspects of fashion, one of our favourite pastimes is discovering the latest faces in modelling. Whilst it's always interesting to see who opens the Prada show in Milan, or the Burberry show in London, when thinking of possible models to interview the first person to spring to mind was Kika-Rose Ridley, an up and coming model represented by Models 1 of London.

I met Kika Rose while working as assistant stylist on a shoot for The Fash Pack, and watching her on the shoot was one of the most magical things I've seen in a long while. With a fierce bone structure reminiscent of Miss Moss herself, it was her eyes that made her presence on the shoot an awe-inducing moment to witness. When you see Tyra Banks constantly rattling on about how it is the models' eyes that make her come alive on a shoot, it can be hard to understand, but there and then I saw Kika work her magic, and all with her piercing eyes.

Not only is Kika an absolute beauty, and stunning both in front of and behind the camera - working with her I learnt that she has a warming, down-to-earth personality, and truly is a lovely London girl. Fingers crossed Models 1 will get back to me and let us conduct an interview with Kika... I think she'd be a great asset to the zine.

Nic.

All photos courtesy of Models 1.

Bricks and Tape//

While I was sat waiting around uni, I noticed that the tape/brick combo found all around Bonington building is pretty similar to the style researched with Factory Records. If we were to go with the literal interpretation of the definition of a 'factory' and it's aesthetic, maybe this kind of setting could be used for photo shoots - if not editorials, maybe as a background for any kind of shopping pages or features?

Nic.

The Hacienda//

Owned by Factory Records, The Hacienda was a nightclub and music venue big in the 'Madchester' era, between 1982 and 1997. Labelled the most famous club in the world by Newsweek, the venue - real name Fac 51 Hacienda - is synonymous with the rise of acid and house music throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s, and was funded for the most part of its run by record sales from band New Order.

We began looking at The Hacienda for inspiration after it was mentioned to us in a seminar by Matt. The background for the venue is something we feel to be quite relevant to The Factory, with strong links to different areas of art culture (financed by music label Factory Records, designed by famous graphic designer Peter Saville...) and the aesthetic of the club with its red brick warehouse history.

The look and graphics surrounding The Hacienda are quite industrial, which because of the name The Factory could be worth bearing in mind for the look of our zine.

Nic.

The Factory Girl//

The Factory:

Fashion youth culture

Fashion, photography, models, hair, makeup, magazines...

Informative

Dark

Edgy

Youthful

Fierce

Iconic

Grunge

Attitude

British aesthetic

Target//

To come up with our consumer moodboard, I began thinking about the target reader for The Factory - our audience, why they will like the magazine, what they want to read about and how they want it to look.

I was thinking about all of the types of things that Amy, Kate and I would love in a magazine. And as much as we love to discover new artists, songs or films, fashion is our true love.

That doesn't mean, however, that we just love looking at clothes and catwalk shows. Our love for fashion goes much further than this, we are incessantly obsessed by the latest magazines, models, photographers, editorials, campaigns, bloggers... as well as the clothes. It seems there's no real magazine on the market that focuses entirely on fashion as a whole - both front of house and behind the scenes. This is where The Factory aims to sit.

Nic.

The Something Issue//

A lot of the magazines we looked at when we were trawling through our collections produced each issue with a different theme, which is something we liked. For example, i-D have recently produced 'The Lovers of Life' issue, the latest 125 is the America issue, and Nylon have done a Denim issue.

We'd like to use this as a focus for our zine, so we started thinking of ideas for different issues.

We'll have to think of some good type to go with each issue, but so far we've settled on doing a Photography issue, and an issue dedicated entirely to Supermodels. More issue ideas to come..!

Nic.

Sassy//

Whilst reading up on teen blogging sensation Tavi Gevinson, I came across one of her most recent posts on an American vintage teen mag, Sassy. She's obviously quite obsessed with the magazine and has fans send her back copies so that she can get to read them, and after looking at her post, I can see why.

For it's time (1988-94), and particularly for its teen audience, Sassy had quite an abruptly opinionated and somewhat grown up tone of voice, although this may have been something to do with its founder being feminist Jane Pratt. It featured some influential people, for example Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love, and Pratt is credited for spotting Chloe Sevigny.

In this article, they've mixed up the lives and characteristics to compare Hillary Clinton with Courtney Love. This is quite a strong statement for a teen magazine to make about the President's wife and the turbulent partner of a drug fuelled rock star, and is a perfect example of the kind of content that Sassy covered.

Perhaps my favourite part of Tavi's post was her analysing this front cover.

Whilst it looks like any other American teen mag, Tavi took a photo of the caption that sits just at the bottom of the page.

I love the use of irony here, and although this probably isn't something we want to take on board for our magazine - I thought it was worth mentioning a publication that mocked the usual system. The full post on Sassy by Style Rookie is available here.

Nic.

Dead Pan Sam//

Whilst trawling through the wasteland that is Facebook, I came across a Tillate-style photograph that a friend of mine had been tagged in, with a blog address underneath. Out of pure blog curiosity, I decided to have a look, and have since been following a photographer under the name Dead Pan Sam, since January.

He runs two blogs - Long Time Dead, which bases itself around his daily musings and happenings, and Partie! Partie!, a blog based entirely on the humorous events which take place of his university town, Brighton. I admire LTD for its attention to detail - it has a very honest, youthful tone (as does Partie! Partie!), however the focus of his photographs and the stories behind them really capture the characters of the people in them.

Partie! Partie!, however, has a very crude undertone. When it comes to these photo stories, Dead Pan Sam has no shame in humiliating the drunk in all their glory - and along with some fantastic captions, there's a real dark humour to this site.

As we as a team are inspired by photography, I think it would be good to feature Dead Pan Sam - an upcoming photographer who obviously holds a lot of passion for his art, and deserves to be recognised on a wider level. After showing Kate and Amy his blogs, they agreed and so we hope to do an interview with him, and ask if he'd be willing to do produce some photographs exclusively for The Factory.

Long Time Dead

A day at the docks

Get low

Yeasayer

Sorry I was/am/always will be late

Elton John's Shoes

Partie! Partie!

Something along the lines of blondes have more fun

Pseudo knee operation toilet

Get your tit out for a free shirt

A good start

So. So. Lonely.

Nic.

Jalouse et Nylon//

Jalouse has become a huge inspiration for our zine, as we love the thrown together vibe the layout gives off. Kate found the magazine on our trip to Paris, and fell in love with the cut and paste style, similar to that of another of our favourite magazines - Nylon. Both have quite similar styles, and the kind of scrap book vibe they give off is something we'd like to emulate with The Factory. In Jalouse, they even incorporated some doodles into one of the photoshoots.

Jalouse.

We really liked the scribbled effect over this feature on young blogger Tavi - again, it is similar to the idea we liked of having interviewees complete their answers onto a photograph, as with the Mario Sorrenti shoot and the spread from Oyster magazine.

Nylon.

Nic.