The Magazine That Became a Movement

When a magazine begins life as a photocopy, you know it’s being done for the right reason. A question of intention, when spirit is bigger than packaging, it arrives with all the potential of shaking things up.

While students at the London School of Printing, Dazed co-founders Jefferson Hack and Rankin made a zine, Untitled, square in format with no need for staples. (In some ways it was a giant flyer, a medium of recruitment. And it could blow any way the wind went).

Still DIY, Dazed arrived in 1991. Audacious, with a dynamic subculture bent, it would go on to be published 12 times a year, made by emerging talents making it up as they were going along – as Jefferson says: ‘I think what made Dazed amazing is the differing intentions between us all that collided into one magazine.’ If Dazed was the definitive style magazine of the 90s, it is because it was born and raised in those years, with all the pure attitude of the era. As for the difference between a style magazine and a fashion magazine: one’s about the culture of living, the other, skirt lengths.

Where other newsstand titles pursued a pop realm, Dazed magnified alternative voices like no other: a new generation out there and doing it, creating the climate of not just now, but the shape of tomorrow. To people beyond London, Dazed was truly seismic, like a bomb in WHSmith. The magazine was an education, and a corruptor – how many lives would it uproot, prompting moves to the capital, wanting to taste this world they’d been pressed against the glass of? The question has potential for its own feature.

The Dazed office, at 112-116 Old Street was part myth (because if you knew anything about it it’s likely you weren’t there). Partying through launches, exhibitions and, more than sometimes, just because, it soldiered through comedowns and hangovers to produce a cultural artefact, something readers could line up on shelves the world over, 12 times per year. It was Dazed that presaged publishing’s broader movement to east London, because rent was cheap and that’s where those making it lived. Unlike now, the area was bereft; you couldn’t get ramen or sushi for lunch. It was a pasty from the garage, or nothing.

This context is not pre-internet, since dial-up modems began trickling into our homes en masse around 1998 (take this from experience). It is, however, pre-internet publishing as we’re familiar with, when magazines treated their websites as holding pages. When Dazed Digital launched in 2006, it arrived as the first of its kind, not an afterthought but as its own entity, with its own editorial team and content. What’s more, it was free, harnessing the democracy inherent to the internet.

When Dazed magazine was reconfigured as a bimonthly in 2015, focusing on tactile experience with elevated paper stock and beautiful design, it would begin its lean into how we know it today. And let it be said: being immaculately dressed allows you to work a whole other level of storytelling and influence.

‘As a magazine, Dazed has always had a rare ability to shapeshift and react to the cultural and political landscape of the times we live in,’ declares Isabella Burley, editor-in-chief from 2015’s redesign to 2021. ‘We’ve never been scared to hand over the pages of the magazine to someone else for their big ideas – and I think that’s something we’re pushing now more than ever. Thirty years on, the magazine is as open and fluid as it ever was. As an editor, that makes things really exciting.’

Through its documentation, guest voices, projects, featured talents and fashion, when Dazed commissions something, it’s multifaceted, like a diamond – the light bounces off in many ways. Moving readers and fuelling movements full stop.

This is a magazine that has never shied away from activism. Chelsea Manning, the American whistleblower who shook WikiLeaks with the biggest exposé of classified military documents in US history, prominently covered the Spring 2019 issue with bright red lips and Gucci bouclé. During her seven-year incarceration from 2010, she endured treatment deemed by the United Nations ‘cruel, inhuman and degrading’. Since her release from military prison in 2017 (she was again imprisoned for contempt in 2019, after the issue’s release), she has found herself not just in this new era of activism, but in her personal life and transition.

For America’s teen anti-gun activists, featuring members from the LGBTQ, Black Lives Matter and student movements, orange is their official protest colour. Photographed by Ryan McGinley for Summer 2018, as Adam Eli wrote: ‘Orange is a colour that says to other hunters, “I’m human, please don’t shoot.”’

‘I have been advocating against senseless gun violence and I believe my generation will get things done,’ said 11-year-old Christopher Underwood. ‘I’ve seen young people like me from all across the 50 states standing up and saying “no more”.’

‘No one should have to plead for their life; this is a demand,” declared 18-year-old Christian Carter. ‘We have to have these conversations, this is not a taboo topic.’

For the ‘Age of Craziness’ issue, June 2011, Ai Weiwei covered the magazine’s global activism special. Photographed by Gao Yuan, the artist’s portrait was taken following surgery for a cerebral haemorrhage, four weeks after being severely beaten by Chinese police for trying to attend the trial of activist Tan Zuoren. At the time of going to press, Weiwei’s whereabouts, following his detention, were unknown. Alongside a previously unpublished interview, leading curators and artists discussed the voice that wouldn’t be silenced.

April 27th, 2004: Dazed was in the South African capital of Pretoria, and saw thousands crowd the city to celebrate both president Thabo Mbeki’s second inauguration and the country’s first decade of democracy. Speaking to people on the ground about their hopes and fears, it was thanks to post-apartheid president Nelson Mandela that South Africa was free to flourish in the things Dazed cherishes; music, film, art and fashion. The issue featured kwaito superstar Zola, jazz pioneer Hugh Masekela, jailed people’s poet Mzwakhe Mbuli and hero of the apartheid era Desmond Tutu, yet this optimism was contrasted by recognising the country’s escalating Aids crisis. Photographed by Rankin, the issue’s cover story was made with young people living with HIV in Johannesburg.

More than platforming voices, the magazine has routinely reconfigured itself as a journal for entire perspectives, the most panoramic kind of storytelling.

‘We are not really trying to start new conversations, but there are conversations happening all over that we are a part of,’ said Kwamé Sorrell from BlackMass Publishing of their contribution to the Autumn 2020 issue. ‘I think we are making a place for these kinds of exchanges to continue and grow. It’s not just this insular, homogenous thing – it’s expanding.’ BlackMass’ art project featured in ‘Read Up Act Up’, an issue in which conversation replaced the cover star. In solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, each section had its own guest editor: Black Lives Matter international ambassador Janaya Future Khan; rapper and abolitionist on behalf of the incarcerated, Noname; and designers Samuel Ross, Grace Wales Bonner and Shayne Oliver, who are so much more than ready-to-wear that clothing is a punctuation in their research.

Along with repeat collaborators Björk, Vivienne Westwood and Lee Alexander McQueen, the guest edit is an important strand in Dazed’s history.

Björk, who has had more Dazed covers than anyone else, guest edited the 200th issue, August 2011. And starred in Spring 2015, Autumn 2017 and Winter 2019, rounding out the decade. Westwood appeared across four covers shot by Harley Weir for Spring 2018, three of them featuring her own handwritten cover-lines: ‘Make History!’, ‘Protest!’ and ‘Resist!’

Throughout the 2010s, Dazed has had its fashion moments: images, bigger than clothes, which become everlasting.

For Spring/Summer 2019, British-Nigerian designer Mowalola joined iconic model Debra Shaw in conversation, interviewed by Dominic Cadogan, the day after she’d been shot by Campbell Addy and styled by fashion editor Emma Wyman in her collection. With over 20 years in the industry, Shaw is a recognisable Thierry Mugler face, and stuck her tongue out while wearing a crucifix-adorned gothic mask at Alexander McQueen’s AW96 show, Dante.

After setting a new benchmark for Black LGBTQ portrayals on screen, Ashton Sanders was styled by creative director Robbie Spencer and photographed by Sean and Seng on the beach for the Spring 2017 issue, wearing Craig Green and Wales Bonner. While the magazine was on shelves, Moonlight, Barry Jenkins’ coming-of-age drama Sanders lit up with his performance, became the first film with an all-black cast, as well as the first LGBTQ film, to win Best Picture at the Oscars.

Young Thug, also styled by Robbie Spencer and photographed by Harley Weir in the Autumn 2015 issue, wore a sheer Molly Goddard dress, careless of the fact it was from a womenswear collection. The image presaged the musician’s Alessandro Trincone-created get up for his Jeffery record sleeve. During the shoot in Atlanta, Thug’s sister and day-to-day manager, Amina, demanded he ‘TAKE THE TUTU OFF, NOW!’ It was too late: Thug had happily posed for the shot.

Back in the 00s, Hedi Slimane photographed a British Youth portfolio for the January 2009 issue, gathered from various nightlife locations around London. Renowned for his street-casting approach, the project happened in the period after his hugely influential stint at Dior Homme and before he would arrive, for the second time, at Saint Laurent. Styled by Nicola Formichetti, the iconic portraits story ran over 34 pages and two covers – one featuring the debut of 17-year-old Louis Simonon, son of Clash bassist Paul. The clothes were almost exclusively vintage – because that’s how this generation expressed themselves.

Matt Irwin, Walter Van Beirendonck and Nicola Formichetti would combine for November 2007’s ‘Sex Me Up!’ cover, a foursome of models Anna, Luke, Florian and Eddie. Naked aside from pow-wow headwear by Stephen Jones for Walter, and more headpieces by Gary Card, it captured a particular Dazed energy. The story also epitomised the magazine’s love of sculptural and showpiece fashion.

But the magazine has never just featured the collections. It’s been present at the first stages of creation.

Since the 90s, Dazed’s fashion editors have styled new talent’s shows and lookbooks, and consulted and made connections with other visual talents to bring visions to life. A designer’s message pales into a void without the photography that depicts their world, and Dazed has continuously supported emerging talent by running their campaigns in print – something that was previously the mark of only the biggest houses. These personal and extracurricular fashion relationships continue to feed not only into the magazine but beyond. When you believe in someone, it’s unconditional.

Then there are those designer relationships so close to the magazine, they’re part of Dazed’s social fabric.

An archive search for Gareth Pugh brings more than 200 results. His first cover, featuring early ball silhouettes, was April 2004, photographed by Laurie Bartley and styled by Nicola Formichetti. The tagline? ‘Performance!’ Pugh’s October 2008 cover featured an epic collaboration with Nick Knight, styled by Dazed’s Katie Shillingford, who has worked with Gareth for over a decade, from London squats to the V&A. The feature presaged Pugh’s first Paris show: oh la la!

Designers were asked to make custom looks for Beyoncé for July 2011. The likes of Riccardo Tisci (at Givenchy), Tom Ford and Marc Jacobs (at Louis Vuitton) obliged. Pugh made a metallic snood and leggings, and like four of the designers, asked the diva a question: ‘You were born four days after me, which means you’re a Virgo. What Virgo characteristics do you have?’ The same month, Shillingford got married in a bespoke Pugh wedding dress of dove-grey slashed chiffon.

Pugh talked about his dad’s love of Sunderland FC for the Spring/Summer 2015 issue. He used the club’s chant on the soundtrack to his AW15 show: its striped kit is uncannily like the 2004 cover look.

Lee Alexander McQueen and Dazed were inextricable: super-stylist Katy England met McQueen at a trimmings shop in Soho in 1994, and worked as his studio’s creative director for over ten years, across everything from research and casting to styling and fittings. (The first show she styled was SS95, The Birds; she worked with the designer until 2007.)

During the late 90s, England’s collaboration with McQueen was so intensive that she’d work on Dazed at night. (And when she was Dazed’s fashion director, McQueen spent time on the masthead as fashion editor-at-large.) McQueen guest-edited September 1998’s ‘Fashion-Able?’ Issue, featuring arguably the magazine’s most iconic cover: Paralympian Aimee Mullins photographed by Nick Knight. The shoot went to inform McQueen’s next runway show, No.13, for which Mullins walked in legs carved from elm.

During Isabella Burley’s time as editor-in-chief, she sought to showcase cult and influential artists in the magazine, whether giving pages to their lesser-known projects, commissioning new work, or highlighting an important show.

Byron Newman sent a CD to the office with unseen images of The Ultimate Angels, his documentary about transgender communities in 1980s Paris. And for Autumn/Winter 2015’s issue, Adrienne Salinger submitted never-before seen images from her Teenagers in their Bedrooms series. The project was in a box in her attic: it was the first time in over 20 years she’d looked through the images.

Liz Johnson Artur, who spent 30 years photographing the African diaspora, was featured at the time of her acclaimed South London Gallery exhibition. And in Dazed’s Autumn/Winter 2020 issue, Zanele Muholi, interviewed by Jess Cole, discussed their Tate Modern exhibition and published unseen images from their Brave Beauties series.

It was back in July 2006 that Barbara Kruger made the case for Dazed as a gallery-in-print. Realising the cover of ‘The Freedom Issue’, her signature graphic language declared: ‘BUSY UNMAKING THE WORLD’ / ‘They blind your eyes and drain your brain’.

Then there is simply the power of capturing the mood. The Spring 2020 issue of Dazed was one of the first magazines to acknowledge the Covid-19 pandemic, and was, for the first time, offered as a free download while we were in lockdown. Commissioned before coronavirus hit and sent to print remotely from the team’s beds, living rooms and sofas, the ‘alone together’ content captured the mood of our experience as it was playing out. Featuring cover star Billie Eilish (photographed by Harmony Korine, styled by fashion director Emma Wyman) and 100 Gecs, there was a focus on talents who are somewhat enigmatic but who live freely online in their own realms. It was the internet that would be our lifeline through isolation, ending in video-call fatigue.

This unprecedented event of our lifetime didn’t discriminate, meaning brands had to adapt. While models shot themselves for campaigns. SS21 fashion weeks were seen, by and large, on a laptop. An extraordinary period for image-making – and for planning future issues of Dazed, with the newly appointed editor-in-chief Ib Kamara and executive editorial director Lynette Nylander. 

THE MAGAZINE THAT BECAME A MOVEMENT
TEXT DEAN MAYO DAVIES
DAZED: 30 YEARS CONFUSED: THE COVERS THAT LAUNCHED A MOVEMENT
RIZZOLI
ISBN 978-0-8478-7073-8
2021