Fashion for Men Magazine, Issue 1

I was in my favourite newsagent’s when I saw the monster that is Fashion for Men. 

Fashion for Men, Issue 1

For  some time now magazines like “Self-Service and “Another Magazine” have been publishing as “ book-magazines”.  These hard-bound, glossy paper mags are the size and weight of a book, with the style and attitude of a magazine.  Advances in computer-typesetting and digital printing have made this possible.  These book-magazines are usually published twice a year and strive for a kind of permanence in the ephermeral world of style mags.

Well, clearly this idea has jumped the gender barrier, because Fashion for Men is just this kind of book-magazine.   

This is big, I weighed it, it weighs 6 Kilos.  Hell, I carried it.  Occasionally, writing about menswear can be a slog but it has never been an actual sweat before….. 

Here is a picture, with my mobile phone as size comparison.

The biggest men's magazine on the block

So what do you get for your 25 Euros?

The magazine is the venture of Milan Vukmirovic.  Vukmirovic is currently the creative force behind Rome’s Trussardi  brand.  Late last year I was in Trussardi’s flagship store in Rome, recently redesigned by Vukmirovic.  The brand now has a young, arrogant but elegant style, think La Dolce Vita for the IPad generation.    

Vukmirovic is also a fashion photographer, artist and has several other hats.  He writes an introduction in the magazine.  He says the magazine is a guide to men’s fashion and he hopes it becomes a benchmark for men to refer to. 

In my view the magazine feels very European.  This is reinforced by write-ups of forthcoming exhibitions in Paris, European art and the type of American culture that appeals to Europeans, classic black American music etc.   

The articles are short and serve to support the menswear as art, style theme.  There is an interesting interview with African designer Adrien Sauvage and some superb pictures of his African-influenced menswear.  

There are couple of articles that strike a false note.  One is an article solely about Chanel’s Exclusif’s for women, which is striking in it’s irrelevance. 

The quality of the photography and the ads is of course stunning.  Fashion for Men is printed on heavy art paper and shows the current menswear brand ads off to their greatest effect.

The pictorials, though beautifully photographed, are varied in their impact.  The most successful of them are photographed by Vukmirovic himself.  So a pictorial set on romantic Italian influenced clothes is beautifully and simply photographed.  The clothes are beautifully presented and look wonderful.    

Here is a picture of an Etro shirt from one of the articles.    

Etro Shirt, from photo-pictorial in Fashion for Men magazine

However, some of the other photsets do not match up to this standard.  There is a piece on Givenchy’s new collection, menswear influenced by tropical images.  However, the point of the pictorial is thrown away in favour of a homo-erotic paen of praise for the (admittedly handsome) model.  Others are just as bad, but with less point, an exercise in art photography where the menswear comes off a bad second. 

This lack of consistently is further exacerbated by a Vukmirovic-shot photoset of men’s suits.  This is superbly done but comes as a shock, because it is an almost exact copy of the style used by Fantastic Man magazine.  It is completely different from anything else in this magazine. 

So at this point the magazine stands in need of better artistic/editorial control.  What is good is that the upscale brands clearly trust Vukmirovic and have given him clothes from the very top of their range.  These coats, jewellery and accessories are extragavant and beautiful and would not usually be seen in a fashion mag, so when the mag works it works well. 

Similarly there is a piece by Vukmirovic, on trends, which is superb, an incredible eye for the details that make men’s style.  This is the single most useful piece in the magazine.

So I am undecided on Fashion for Men.  I bought it because it is what I do.  Naturally Fashion for Men needs a little time to mature and the second issue will really tell whether it can become a benchmark for men’s style.  It has some tough competition in the shape of Fantastic Man and Man about Town magazines, who have already staked out the sophisticated, stylish man territory.

If Fashion for Men can use Vukmirovic’s design sense to give the magazine a coherent visual style then I think they can be a contender.