Editor’s letter: summer 2021

Taken from the new print issue of THE FACE. Order your copy here.

There were practical reasons at play behind this, our Summer Sport Special. Sporting events were, to be honest with you, the only thing we could bet would happen over the next few months – even if they do take place without fans, as many over the last year have.

As it turned out, though, it was fans who shaped the issue most. They were definitely on our mind as news of football’s European Super League was digested on the April day we shot the 23 people (and one dog) who make up the cardboard cut-outs you see on the cover.

The fan-led protests that immediately derailed those plans certainly lent new resonance to the fact that we were using our cover to announce, ahead of this summer’s Euros, a new England supporters’ shirt, the first glimpse of which comes inside this very edition of THE FACE. Especially an England supporters’ shirt designed by the beyond-cool Martine Rose, the most fan-like of all designers.

It feels like a logical conclusion to what we’ve been trying to do over the past three issues: focusing, predominantly, on stories from within our own shores. Celebrating people, not packages. Even if they do so happen to be made of the same corrugated fibreboard as one another.

So thank you to Martine, her team, our fantastic photographer Rosie Marks, Leo Robins
for the divine inspiration and, of course, the many people (and canine) who took part in one of our favourite cover stories we’ve ever done.

And thank you, too, to the roller skaters, tennis players, Olympians, footballers, breakdancers and fitness fanatics who make up our mega snapshot of England NOW.

We hope you enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed putting it together.

Matthew Whitehouse, Editor

London, May 2021