@magazine_fan is @dazedfashion’s account of the week
Run by Rossana Tich – a Hackney-based woman working in public relations, marketing and communication with an encyclopedic knowledge of fashion – @magazine_fan is a digital archive of the pages that make up the last 50 years of fashion publishing. It’s as much a commentary on how fashion, styling and photography have changed over the last half-century years (Tich argues the first has stayed the same, while the latter two – styling and photography – have defined each era), as it is a way for Tich to share her extensive personal collection with those who have requested to dive into it over the years. “While I try and only post photographs and clothes that I like, to tell a story it is sometimes necessary to post otherwise,” she explains. “On the whole, I try and avoid the obvious.”
When it comes to the magazines that frequent the account, they range from 80s issues of Vogue Italia and Blitz to 90s issues of British Vogue – as well as, of course, the occasional Dazed. Think an Annie Leibovitz lensed Michael Jackson cover of Vanity Fair from 1989, and Helmut Newton’s final shoot for Vogue Italia in 2004 feat. Mariacarla Boscono amongst a wealth of other stories shot by the likes of Paolo Roversi, Oliviero Toscani, or a fresh-faced Mario Testino (for Over 21 and Ms London).
If you haven’t already hit follow on @magazine_fan, scroll down to see more.
How would you describe the @magazine_fan account?
@magazine_fan: A digital archive of some of my favourite photography – mainly fashion – from magazines that I have collected over the years. The images are selected carefully and there are often subtle themes. It’s also an homage to film photography and print publications.
What made you start it?
@magazine_fan: I had been looking to do something with my collection for ages. Over the years, people (including photographers) have asked if they could look through my magazine collection. I just had to wait for Instagram to come along and the right opportunity timing-wise. It has been a fabulous way to reignite my creative urges.
What are you trying to convey through the account?
@magazine_fan: One of the things I am trying to convey is that fashion hasn’t really changed much in the last 50 years. If you look at a fashion photograph from 1940 and then one from 1970, there was a huge change in fashion, styling and photography. If you look at a photo from 1985 and 2015 the clothes are not that different, it is the styling and photography that makes them so, but less so that the previous example. In the future, I think historians will look at the last 50 years of fashion as variations on a theme, with a few movements thrown in along the way.
What are some of your favourite posts?
Here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here.
Is there a certain criteria for a @magazine_fan post?
@magazine_fan: I don’t post photographs if I don’t know the photographer’s name. Every photographer is credited, as are the creative teams behind the images wherever possible. Sometimes I post features associated with photographs, as I think that they give a sense of time and place – street style and clubbing pieces, for example. And fashion shoots and features with men.
Do you take submissions?
@magazine_fan: Not directly. I do regram occasionally, but really, this is about my magazine collection and my view on fashion, photography and publishing in the past half a century. I do post from exhibitions or events, where there is a magazine element. Otherwise, I source everything from my own, extensive, magazine collection. Piles of them, but I’m going to have some shelves installed soon so that it finally becomes a library.
“One of the things I am trying to convey is that fashion hasn’t really changed much in the last 50 years... If you look at a photo from 1985 and 2015 the clothes are not that different, it is the styling and photography that makes them so” – @magazine_fan
What do your references reveal about you or which publication reflects you best?
@magazine_fan: My (almost) encyclopedic knowledge of photographers, stylists, fashion models, hairdressers and makeup artists. Having been on photo shoots, first as a student and then in my working career, I have the information on some of the shoots I feature, I still know some of the people involved. If I were a magazine, I’d probably be one of the Marie Claire Bis from the 1980s.
What might people not realise about the magazine fan account?
@magazine_fan: As mentioned before, that all the content comes from my own collection. The magazines are not catalogued and I do it from memory. My magazine collection isn’t static – it is still growing. I started this passion early in life and ‘magazinitis’ has never left me. When I go abroad, I always get a magazine or two (those Vogue Italias have caused many baggage allowance problems in the past).
What are your all-time favourite magazine covers?
@magazine_fan: I quite like it when magazines don’t put a traditional celebrity or model on the cover. Tatler under Tina Brown, with Michael Roberts as the fashion editor, did some quite ‘out there’ covers in the 80s such as Miss Piggy modeling Karl Lagerfeld, or an illustration of a Manolo Blahnik shoe. The accompanying copy was fun too and made the whole thing so much more enticing. I don’t have any of the original Nova magazines in my collection but some of their covers were great.
Who are your favourite artists and photographers?
@magazine_fan: I love the work of Sacha van Dorssen (signed as Sacha), a photographer who’s work was prolific in the 70s and 80s, she really understood how to photograph women. I have had fun charting the work of Paolo Roversi and Oliviero Toscani over the past four decades too. I also have some of Mario Testino’s really early efforts for magazines like Over 21 and Ms London – in fact, I recently posted what turns out to be his very first front cover. I like finding little surprises too, like an accessories shoot for Marie Claire, which was done by Pierre et Gilles, before they were actually called that.
Has anything unexpected come out of posting your content?
@magazine_fan: Quite a few things. I didn’t expect to be conversing with people, albeit digitally, whose work or appearances in magazines I first noted when I was a teen, it’s like a magazine coming alive. I have even met some of them since I started @magazine_fan. I’ve had a donation of 1980s Harper’s & Queens to add to my collection and offers of more magazines from around the world and I’ve connected with people who live around the corner, but we didn’t know that at the time.
What are your other favourite Instagram accounts?
@magazine_fan: Here’s my top ten: @sophiefontanel, @christophecufos, @gethinmoller, @documentingfashion_courtauld, @70sstyeanddesign, @lydiathornley, @samueldrira, @carolelizabethdietz, @duroolowu, @csinlondon.