Culture IRL: a new era for THE FACE

It’s a funny thing relaunching a heritage magazine title. How do you make what you do feel relevant for a new generation, without completely tarnishing the legacy of one of the most revered publications of all time, one that readers from Newcastle to New York have clutched to their hearts for over 40 years?

I suppose one thing we have going for us is that THE FACE was always about being young and alive right now. And since our relaunch in 2019, after a 15-year gap, we’ve tried to capture that as much as possible: looking less at the past (or even, to be honest, the future), and more at what’s going on at precisely this moment. Facing outwards, not inwards. Reflecting the world and the people living in it.

That’s what we look for in our photography. Of course, we want it to be cool and sexy and elevated and chic. But we want it to say something about the times we live in, too; honing in on ostensibly small stories and using them to communicate big ideas. In the end, we don’t want THE FACE to be just another trendy magazine, covering things you’re used to seeing in the pages of other trendy magazines. We want to photograph what young people are actually interested in: the places they actually go, the clothes they actually wear, the things they actually, really, genuinely care about. THE FACE should be a moment in time. A container of ideas. Something to grasp. Something to hold. Youth culture in its most potent form.

Of course, there have been obstacles along the way in this new life of the magazine; not least a global pandemic that forced half of the planet into lockdown six months after the release of our first issue. It certainly gave us pause, not least because we had to ask for the first time in the magazine’s history: what is THE FACE if the kids aren’t going out, dressing up, and enjoying themselves anymore?

I began to find my own answers on the day in January 2021 when we photographed Manchester record label, NQ, for the cover. Eight miles from its East Manchester headquarters, in the quiet suburbs of Didsbury and Northenden, a major incident was declared as Storm Christoph raged and more than 2,000 homes had to be evacuated after the river Mersey broke its banks during the peak of the pandemic’s second wave. Thankfully, families were safe as defences held, just centimetres from flooding. But it felt a formidable piece of symbolism for what we wanted to capture with the new Face: a feeling that life, too, endures, always promising to rise and overflow.

Since then, we’ve tried to find life wherever we can. We have predominantly focused on stories from within our own shores, documenting rap groups in Belfast, cosmic scallies in Liverpool, and Lime bike hackers in London. But we haven’t lost our curiosity for life elsewhere, too: from the drill and amapiano scenes of Accra and Johannesburg, to the banlieues of Paris and the bomb shelters of Ukraine. Not to mention the borderless world of the internet: inarguably the biggest culture shift to have happened while THE FACE was out of print, and a land buzzing with tribes and subcultures and joy, despite what the old fogeys will tell you. It’s all life, whether IRL or not.

Our job, ultimately, remains as it always was: to be excited. To be so excited by a story that you manage to convince the best photographers, stylists and writers in the world to work on it. Then for them to create something so brilliant that the reader thinks it’s the most exciting thing they’ve ever seen, too. I see what we do as a kind of folk art, in that sense: selecting ideas, evolving them, passing them on for someone else to do the same.

In that way, I hope we retain much of the spirit of the original FACE. We certainly take seriously our role as guardians of this magic thing of which people have cherished memories. And we remain forever grateful to our founder Nick Logan, and all the people who set us on this journey. At the same time, I hope that if I pick up a new copy of THE FACE in 30 years, I might think it’s a load of rubbish that was better in my day. If I do, I reckon whoever’s making it will be doing a good job.

So, from Newcastle to New York, long may THE FACE continue. No matter where the culture shifts to next.

Originally published by the National Portrait Gallery, London, in The Face Magazine: Culture Shift. Available to purchase at the National Portrait Gallery or online.