Images via George Lois

I have long been ranting that today’s popular fashion magazines are bland, generic and overloaded with information and advertisements.  I have a small collection of ancient vogues and international magazines, and they are brilliant from beginning to end; the content, imagery, direction and design. That is not to say that I don’t read current fashion magazines from time to time and enjoy them, I do. However, I am not moved by these current magazines, not inspired and in awe.

For me, current fashion magazines (I am talking about the more mainstream ones here) are for pure entertainment, in the same vain as just okay television shows and movies. Older issues of these same magazines, however, are like museums of art and brilliant books and iconic movies. Thumbing through them, I am inspired, I am moved, I feel something. And while there are plenty of great magazines out there, they are harder to find, existing in specialized magazine shops and online.  It would be nice to walk into a bodega and see beautiful, design driven, interesting magazines; lined up like soldiers ready to take on the world.

Read George Lois’s interview with Blackbook here