Editor’s letter: summer 2024

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

We’ve touched on many themes over these last few years at THE FACE. Home and suburbia. Folklore and fandom. One thing that’s been constant through it all, though, is family.

You can see it in our cover story with Jorja Smith (issue 5), who we shot alongside her parents in Walsall in the West Midlands. You can read about it in our interview with Taylor Russell (issue 16), who spoke to playwright Lucy Prebble about her English father and how he connects her to the country. Family came in handy, too, for our brilliant summer of sport cover (issue 7), shot in Martine Rose’s parents’ back garden and featuring her Dad, Clifford, who moved to London from Jamaica some 60 years ago.

But family doesn’t have to mean blood. You can find it through friendship, through connection, through something as simple as liking the same music and bands and clothes. Family is the people you surround yourself with, whether they’re your bandmates (see: Deputy Editor Olive Pometsey’s fantastic temperature check on the biggest girl group on the planet NewJeans), industry peers (read: former Digital Director Brooke McCord’s chat with model of the moment Alex Consani), mentors (check out: new Senior Fashion Features Editor Eni Subair’s moderation of Little Simz and Erykah Badu in conversation), or the people you’ve inspired (pore over: the questions Music Director Davy Reed put to Skepta from some of his biggest famous fans).

Family is whoever you choose to stand with. And so, from us and ours to you and yours, we hope that you enjoy the issue.

Matthew Whitehouse, Editor

London, June 2024