Thom Bettridge Says Viral Magazine Covers Are Only Sugar Highs

0:04Hi, this is Imran Ahmed, founder and CEO of the Business of Fashion. Welcome to the BOF podcast. It's Friday, March 21st. ID Magazine was founded in 1980 by Terry and Tricia Jones, pioneering a new kind of fashion storytelling that mixed street style with high fashion and always with an eye and a wink to the future. The magazine has had its ups and downs and in 2023 fell victim to the bankruptcy of Vice, which had acquired ID from its founders in 2012. Enter Carly Kloss and her burgeoning media company Bedford Media, which has plans to revitalize ID under new editor-in-chief Tom Bettridge, who has experience at O32C, Interview, High Snobiety, and Essence.

0:54Now Tom is on a mission to re-establish ID as a cultural institution for a new generation, one that values community over clicks and retention over viral attention. I've worked on viral covers, and they can do so much for your exposure as a small brand, but at the end of the day, it's really like a sugar high. That famous person's fans are there to see the person they like, and actually, what I've learned is that not that many of them actually stick around, but I like this idea of making the magazine about the magazine rather than about who's on it necessarily. This week on the BOF podcast, Tom and I talk about his journey to ID and what it takes to relaunch an iconic title for a new era.

1:46Here's Tom Bettridge on the BOF podcast. Tom Bettridge, welcome to the BOF podcast and to our offices here on Charlotte Street in London. We just moved in here a few months ago, so you're the first podcast guest to sit here. I can report it looks really nice. Thank you. We're still moving in. So there's still lots of things to do, but we're happy with our new home. As a fellow editor-in-chief of a media company, I'm really looking forward to this conversation. And I obviously want to dive into all things ID, but I thought we should spend a little bit of time on the journey that brought you here.

2:32I'm curious why, how and why you ended up in fashion media in the first place. Like what was it that first attracted you to this industry? It's interesting. I feel like in a way I was always very attracted to creating magazines and media. And then fashion was kind of the place where that was happening in the most interesting way. The first magazine I ever made was actually when I was in college. I was the editor of the philosophy magazine. You studied philosophy, right? Yeah, I studied philosophy. So then I always had this interest in making magazines. So I volunteered to make like the department's magazine and I got hooked on it.

3:15And I started making magazines for other departments and like it almost became like the real thing I was studying besides what I was actually studying in school. But the fashion aspect of it, I think that's just where I feel like the heat and energy was when I was leaving school. So what year was that? So I left school in 2012. So it was kind of like post 2008 recession. And a lot of people were like heralding the death of magazines and media and all this stuff. And I feel like, you know, someone asked me recently about that. And I was saying like, I feel like every year since I started, people have been like predicting the death of publishing, but it's still around more than ever.

3:57Why do you think it endures? You know, what is it about? I mean, clearly this is a space you've been interested in for a really long time. So I guess two parts to my question, like why does your interest in magazines and media endure? And why do you think the industry endures, notwithstanding all of the doomsayers saying that it's the end of magazines? Well, you know, I think that part of the reason why people predict the end of magazines is they're like, OK, everyone is their own publishing platform now, right, through social media or whatever. But I think, you know, there's so much noise, especially now with like AI and how like, you know, people are publishing slop, quote unquote, like on social media.

4:43Like you need a voice that can kind of make sense of things and canonize things and help decide what's important and what's relevant, you know. And so I think actually, like, since I started, I feel like that curatorial voice has become like even more important than ever because we're so overstimulated as a culture and like unsure what to prioritize sometimes. Yeah. I mean, that's been the role of editors since magazines were first invented, which is to provide a point of view. Right. So you started, I guess your first like senior editorial role in a magazine was at O32C. You know, did you live in Berlin and do the whole thing?

5:27I did the whole thing. I moved to Berlin for that job. And it was great because I think, you know, at O32C, we were a small team. So like everyone was like the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, you know, like I was posting stuff on social media, writing the newsletter, you know, and I think it's good to get your hands on everything, especially early on in your career. It was also a really interesting time because like the year after I joined, like we started creating the merch line. And so like part of my job became sort of like marketing this like new idea of like a magazine having this like commercial arm, which was like really interesting and influential for like things I would do later in my career.

6:12Ultimately, I don't think that merch line endured or worked out over the long term, right? So what were the lessons you took away from marrying a magazine with merch? Well, it's interesting because it's, I mean, they still show at Paris and like they have like a really strong audience for the clothing that they do. But I think what was quite interesting was that something that that project taught me was that magazines at the end of the day are almost about building a community. You know, maybe there's like the 5 million people you reach on social media, but actually like the audience that really matters from a sort of community perspective is like the 5 ,000 people who would buy a t-shirt, you know?

6:56And so thinking on those kinds of terms was like really interesting because I think, you know, coming up in media, you're trained to look at like raw impressions rather than like who you're talking to, how invested they are in you, but beyond like reading something. Yeah. I mean, I think the idea of cultivating readers who love a publication so much that they'll walk around the streets with it, either emblazoned on a ball cap or a t-shirt or like the New Yorker on a tote, like that's just somehow showing that, you know, media brands play such an important role in, you know, people finding their tribe and identifying with a specific editorial point of view.

7:43So how would you describe the O32C point of view? You know, the motto of the magazine when I was there, it was called the Manual for Freedom, Research and Creativity. And so in a way, even though it a fashion magazine. It was almost as much about the people kind of creating culture behind the scenes. Like one of the stories that really inspired me when I first started there was they did this incredible profile a couple of years before I started about Stephen Mizell. And it was kind of like the only thing you could really read about Stephen Mizell at that point. And did he participate in the story?

8:22He didn't, but they interviewed like every single model he ever shot with. Because he doesn't talk to anybody, right? No, exactly. So they did an oral history of like everyone but him. Right. And that idea of like, you know, almost like turning the lens back on how things are made, I think was really relevant, especially at the time, because I feel like nowadays, like young people, they all want to become creative directors, you know, and so they're interested in how these things are made. But I think at the time it almost was like, wait, why are you talking about the photographer, not the models?

8:51Yeah. So then you moved on to Interview, which unlike O32C, relatively new publication, like Interview is steeped in this like really deep cultural history. And I guess there's there was like a predefined format about how everything works. They're like, what was what was it like stepping into like a quite mythical publication? It was so much fun. And it was also such an honor. I think like, you know, in addition to philosophy, I also studied art history. And so I grew up being obsessed with Andy Warhol and like his cultural output. And so I think the idea of being in dialogue with that legacy, like off the bat was like fascinating.

9:38But then I started studying the early issues and stuff. It was so interesting to see the way that he almost used interview as a tool to like interact with popular culture directly. You know, like there's this really great interview that he did with Burt Reynolds. And you could almost tell when Andy's like doing the interview that he's basically doing the interview because he just wanted to meet Burt Reynolds. Isn't that why we all interview people sometimes? Because I'm guilty of that, too. There's just someone I'm fascinated by, you know. And that was kind of how we almost like recultivated the DNA of the magazine was to really think about this collective fascination we have of fame and to think about like how that Warholian thing is almost refracted onto today.

10:25You know, so it's like, what would Andy Warhol think of TikTok? Like, what would he think of OnlyFans? Like, what would he think of this, that and the other thing? I think became a really great thought experiment to work from. And how was the formula of selecting the interviewee and the interviewer? I mean, I once was lucky to be interviewed by Dionne von Furstenberg for interview. And it goes down to this day as like, one of my favorite moments, you know, when I was on the other side of the table, as it were, plus they took a really cool picture. But you know, how did you guys think about pairing people up?

11:02It's really funny. It's not an exact science. So I think in some cases we ask people, like, who do you want to interview you? And they'll come back with someone, like, that we never would have thought of. And it's, like, perfect. You know, for example, like, when we did the RuPaul cover, we asked RuPaul, like, who do you want to interview you? And he said, Judge Judy, because I've been watching Judge Judy every day for, like, 30 years or something like that. And, like, you know, I would never think to be like, oh, yeah, like, Judge Judy should do the interview. But like, you know, so oftentimes the talent would come up with really great ideas.

11:35And then sometimes we would want to use things as a chance to almost like tease out certain themes. You know, so for example, like when we did Terry Mugler, we had him like interviewed by one of his muses, you know. And so like this idea of like the designer and the muse is like, so Tippi Hedren interviewed him, which was really great. Well, as an editorial construct, I find it so interesting because, you know, when we're commissioning stories or brainstorming ideas here at BOF, like we're really focused on the subject. But this is really interesting because you can focus on both the subject and the interviewer to create that kind of editorial magic, which I think is really cool.

12:19So, OK, then you went on to like a digital first publication. You know, Heisman Byte, who's founder, kind of like me, you know, started writing a blog and turned it into like a really widely read publication. You know, what was it like to work in like that purely digital setting? It was incredible. I mean, like I learned so much, especially working directly with David, you know, because as you said, like the first five years of the publication was just him posting on a blog. And so like, I was really fascinated by working at this fast pace, working in dialogue with the news cycle, having a bigger audience.

13:01And I think at the same time, like, the brand had reached this point where they had become kind of interchangeable with Hypebeast. And so we wanted to almost turn the brand into like a kind of new legacy publication, you know, and to like give it a really great print magazine to like, you know, they had never really done stories with like celebrities before. and they'd never really commanded a huge voice in terms of like op-eds and things like that. And so like, I think like in a way, a lot of that project was about creating this almost like, what would a legacy publication for this new generation of fashion consumer look like was, was kind of the, the central paradigm of the project in a way.

13:45Got it. Did you find the pace challenging in any way? Cause you went from this kind of 032C was like twice a year, I think, print publication. And then interview was probably more frequent, but also largely print focused publication. And then all of a sudden you're in this like digital avalanche. Yeah. The story I always tell is my first day at High Snobiety. I got there like 830. The admin gave me my laptop. And by the time I set up my laptop in 45 minutes, we had already published 12 stories. and that was new to me right because I think like even at interview we were doing six print magazines a year you know and so that was like and we obviously had a website but it wasn't working at that kind of pace and I think it was really great from a leadership perspective because at a certain point you realize like I can't top edit every single one of these pieces you know like I have to cultivate a team that is gonna do great work even when I'm not directly touching it You know, and so I think that was for me, like, personally, like the big growth thing, you know, like learning how to almost be like more of a coach than like an editor of editors, you know?

14:59Yeah, I mean, it changes the whole game when you can't get into every single story, which you would do in a print publication, right? You probably look at everything and like you think about the whole package together. You think about an issue and you think about how it all fits together and you write an editor's letter. And like part of your role is to like explain the issue to your readers. Whereas in the always on nonstop digital stream of content, places like High Somity, it's more about a point of view over this constant stream of stuff. And you just really need to shape that point of view.

15:36And it's going to adapt and change with what's happening in the world. Because it's really about capturing the zeitgeist. You know, it's like what's happening today. What do you think gets lost operating at a pace like that? And what do you think are the added benefits of working so quickly? You know, it's a really good question because I think that for me as someone who came from print, I was mostly learning all the benefits of working quickly. you know, and this idea of really being in dialogue with the news, because I think something we learned very quickly was that if something was happening in the world, we would find our own way of talking about it.

16:18And I started thinking about this idea that I talk about with my team all the time is like the digital water cooler, you know, like what's that thing people are talking about today? And like, how do we either lead that discussion or become a part of it in our own weird way or whatever. And so there's a lot of learning there. And I think as far as what you lose, I think in a way that's like, that was kind of what I was there to add was like, you know, longer form pieces, pieces that are more addressing what it all means. Because like, I think that that's the piece that you kind of like lose when you're following like every single update that's happening.

16:55So then Tom, you made the slightly surprising decision to go to the other side, as it were, and up to Essence, the kind of really youth-focused e-commerce retailer in Montreal. What prompted that decision? Because, you know, when you're working in like a pure editorial environment, you're given a lot of creative freedom around what you choose to write about. And there's no specific commercial objective, really, other than to make sure lots of people are reading and buying a magazine so that you can reach advertisers and make money that way. To make the decision to go work on the content side of an e-commerce retailer is a pretty significant shift.

17:39Yeah, it was really interesting because the way I first encountered Essence was that when I was at 032C, Jörg Koch, the editor of 032C, and I, we were consulting at Essence and helping them build like the early version of their editorial platform. And it was a really eye opening project because, you know, Essence, it's a very data led company, but one that strongly believes in creativity. And so we had actually, through looking at some of the customer data, learned that by virtue of just people reading stuff on the site, they became better customers monetarily. So it was educational in a way? It was fascinating because, you know, I thought that doing content to make money on e-com would be like, okay, let me do a listicle about like 10 great sweaters and then people click on the sweaters or whatever.

18:33But actually what really worked was if you just made great content, you then kind of became part of someone's digital diet in a way that built loyalty with the brand. The metaphor I would use a lot with my editors there was like thinking about like a hotel with like a great coffee shop, you know, because even if you don't ever stay in the hotel or maybe like you only stay there when your mom is visiting or whatever, if a hotel is a great coffee shop, you're there every day getting a cup of coffee and it creates this kind of scene around the brand. You know, the content at essence was like the coffee shop.

19:10Exactly. You know, because like, even if you're a voracious shopper, right? Like you don't buy like a Rick Owens jacket every day, but you could like something on our social media every day. You could read an article on our website every week. And then all of a sudden, like essence is just kind of like how your filter for fashion. And that was really fascinating for me. Cause I think also like going back to this idea about doom and gloom around media and publishing, Like I was like, are all editors like me going to work for a brand one day and be like doing this new version of marketing? You know, like it was a really interesting proposition to kind of like be in the sort of early phases of this.

19:49And so I was fascinated from that sort of like consulting project back in the day. And so when I joined, you know, I really wanted to sort of apply the things I've been doing in a publishing context into like a business context. As it was a data led company, did they measure you by any specific metrics? Like what did they care about? So we would use the metrics that everyone uses, but I think what was the most interesting was that you could see the way that customers who were going on article pages, how they would behave on the rest of the site. And so that became a really interesting thing because you'd see, hey, if you're a reader of our content, you're three times more likely to buy something that month or things like that.

20:38And so there was a lot of ways in which like we were merging commercial data with audience data that was like really fascinating and complex as well. Like some of these like algorithms, like I don't even understand them. I just got reports about them. But yeah, I think you can intuitively understand that the more time someone spends reading your content or hanging out in the coffee shop, the more likely they are to pick something up. or think of essence first when they're looking for something because they build this relationship with the brand through the publication. But what were the drawbacks of having a kind of commercial link?

21:21For me, one of the challenges is that brands just move a bit slower than publications do because there's just more things to consider legally, things to consider as far as like the infrastructure of the website and things like that. And so going back to that high subide, I think like I miss being able to publish like multiple things a day. Whereas like in essence, I think like operationally it was just like too hard to do that. You know what I mean? For example, like we were translating everything we were doing into five languages, you know? And so that, that adds like a sort of like step. So I think like, I would say like the thing I missed most about publishing was like the pace of it more than anything else.

22:02So is that what brought you to ID? Yeah, I mean, kind of. It was funny like with ID because I totally wasn't job hunting when they reached out to me. Did Carly call you herself? One of Carly's business partners called me and then I had a meeting in person with Carly and her business partners and I was really sold by them, to be honest. So what was the vision that was sold to you? It was about really creating not just like a media platform, but a cultural institution, you know? And I think that I was really impressed by the respect that they had for what the magazine was. And like, you know, they also like, they have a great relationship with Terry Jones.

22:46And I think this idea of kind of like seeing beyond the immediate like idea of clicks or like, you know, these kind of like media vanity metrics and more just about like, okay, like if you build a voice that matters in culture, like the revenue can kind of come downstream of that. And, and, you know, that's something that I think a lot of editors are like arguing with their business counterparts with at magazines, you know, so to hear that way of looking at things coming from the business people, I was like, oh, wow, like, Like this is like a really great potential gig for me. Well, maybe for some of our listeners who aren't familiar with the history of ID, can you just share, like you've now been there for a while.

23:32What do you think people need to understand about the legacy that Tricia and Terry Jones left behind, their role that ID played in fashion, and the impact it had as a cultural institution? Well, you know, ID was founded in 1980 by like Terry and Tricia Jones. And for me, the biggest impact it had was that it had this like fierce independence. And, you know, it approached fashion, but it did so from a sort of lens in which fashion is almost a tool that you're using to almost like define a future aesthetic for the world. One of the issues that I was really fascinated by from like 1994, when I first went to the ID archive was this issue is called like the network issue.

24:24And like in the editor's letter, there's this thing where it's like, so there's this thing called the internet and 40 million people are using it, but like, is it relevant? Are they all nerds? Are they all like just people on forums? And like, and it was really trying to almost like digest this like emerging culture, like through the lens of being a style magazine in such a fascinating way, you know, like in a way that you don't think of a style magazine, even necessarily being inherently qualified to do it. So that's actually a really interesting question for a style magazine to be asking itself.

24:59And I think that's what's interesting about ID, which is like, as you said, it takes the idea of fashion and style as an entry point into either things and whether they were right or wrong about what the internet eventually became it was a really interesting question to ask quite early on because I remember in 1994 I was living in Montreal I was at McGill University and I had my first email address bjz4 at musicb.mcgill.ca and I just I remember being one of those nerds like trying to figure out like what this thing was you know how it was going to work and dialing up on mosaic or something from a dial-up modem at home that made all those funny noises.

25:42And I think anyone who's curious was wondering like, well, what's this going to become? So the fact that they were asking themselves that question back then, I think that's quite interesting. I guess the other thing that ID really became known for was that wink, you know, and for people who aren't familiar with it, you know, every ID cover has kind of one eye covered in some way or, you know, the eyes closed or it's covered with a hand. Like, do you know the backstory about the wink? You know, it's funny. I don't specifically know the backstory about the wink itself, but I think, you know, something that's really fascinating about ID is, you know, like Terry himself was an art director and like had a really strong relationship with typography.

26:25And so even the logo itself being like an emoji for a wink, like there's something so futuristic about that idea of being like, okay, we're going to name our magazine an emoji, like before emojis even exist yet, you know? And so I think there was this kind of like sense of like playfulness that like always permeated the magazine and this idea of like, okay, like on the cover, like everyone's going to wink. There was a lot of like inside jokes, like they would sometimes like put people's nicknames in the masthead or like things like that. So there was a sense of playfulness that I always really enjoyed about the magazine.

27:02So Carly and her business partner sell their vision to you. You have this understanding of the legacy that Tricia and Terry created and some of the quirks and elements like the wink and other humorous new elements that kind of make it feel different and interesting in the media landscape back then? You know, I'm sure they asked you to kind of think through like, well, what would be your strategy for bringing this magazine into the current day while respecting that legacy? Like, what was your pitch to them? A big part of the pitch was about, and it came from the legacy of ID as well, is thinking of fashion as a, as a medium and a context, but not the subject of the magazine, you know?

27:52And that was something that was really interesting about ID was that it was looking out at like, who are the cool kids at parties? Like, who are the new musicians? Who are like the people on the street who like look interesting, you know? And so even though it was a big part of the fashion system, like the lens was always reflected out onto the world. And so I think that when I look at a lot of magazines today, it's like a lot of biannual fashion magazines, like they almost look like portfolio work for brand campaigns more than they look like entertainment or periodicals, you know? And so, so I really wanted to make a magazine that was a fashion magazine about the rest of the world.

28:33And I see that because if you look at the other biannuals, the business model that they're using, a lot of them now is, and quite successfully, some of them is they'll do like a 20 page editorial, which a brand pays for, but the brand does it because they get a creative output that's different from what the brand could create on its own commissioning a photographer and coming up with an idea or concept for a campaign so you get these like quite impactful and interesting campaign images like I think what Katie Grant does at Perfect is like those images are really really impactful I think some of the greatest and most interesting images but it sounds like what you're trying to do is it's not about the brand portfolio.

29:20It's about using fashion as this kind of medium, as you say. So what's the business model that underpins that for ID going forward? The business model, I think, you know, it revolves around obviously classic things like print advertising. But then I think what's interesting about ID is that it also has like, it has a really big online presence compared to similar magazines as far as like social media and our website. And so like digital projects are like a big part of like a lot of the partnerships that we're developing and things like that. And then also looking at the history of the publication also being like one that did like great events and things like, you know, like looking at like experiential opportunities as well, you know, so it really has kind of, even though print, I think was a big focus of our relaunch, I think it's part of like a much bigger picture.

30:16We'll be right back with more on the BOF podcast.

30:24So let's talk about the first issue, the relaunch. What were you trying to accomplish with this first issue? Like there's so many things at play. It's the first issue of a relaunch of a magazine that kind of went quiet for a few seasons. You're trying to do this like multi-pronged approach with not just a print magazine, but something that animates the same voice digitally, you want experiential elements. Like how did you strategize this beginning? We were trying to do a lot of different things at once, you know, but in one of my early discussions with Carly, one of the ideas we landed on was about this idea of really making ID what it was, but in the context of today.

31:07And so I looked a lot at the archive and like the storytelling and the art direction. And based on that, I really wanted to make something that really didn't look like a lot of magazines. Because I think that a lot of magazines nowadays have this almost kind of like very clean kind of art book feel to them. And I wanted to make something that felt messy and chaotic and like almost the way you feel when you're scrolling the internet more than the way you feel when you're reading a print publication. And then I think beyond that, you know, a big focus of ours was this idea of the unknown, you know, which was the title of the issue.

31:48It's called the unknown issue. And really looking at a legacy of ID, like platforming artists and celebrities, like before anyone else did. And like this idea of supporting emerging culture and like this kind of mystery of like, you know, what are things going to become after they're in the magazine? So one of the things you did was you had this like massive casting campaign for your first cover star, Enza Corey. Tell us about Enza and why and how you chose her. So, yeah, so we did the casting call with Jennifer Vendetti, who, amongst many other things, is famous for creating the cast of Euphoria.

32:31And, you know, we got over 800 video submissions from 18-year-olds around America. And that in itself was a fascinating anthropological journey that I could talk about for hours. Did you look at all 800? I didn't, but I looked at, I think, like 130 or something. So I spent like a good day, like looking through like kind of the top ones. And what were you looking for? You know, I was really looking for someone who obviously had like the kind of like charisma and gravitas to like be on the cover of a magazine. You know, that was almost like the measuring stick, like the barrier for entry. But then I think beyond that, like we really wanted to find someone who like almost like encapsulates the present moment, you know, and feels almost like a representative of our time in a way.

33:25Cause I think that's really what makes like, when you look back at like other stars who came out of obscurity, like they, they felt monumental because even if you didn't know who they were, you felt like they almost like encapsulated the zeitgeist we were living in, you know? And so I think when we encountered Enza, you know, it's a, it clicked immediately. Because you have this woman who's like an actress at school, like she's, you know, she works at the local movie theater because she loves movies so much that like she wants to spend like her after school time, like watching, sneaking around the movie theater and watching movies.

34:01Like she's a trans woman living in like a Republican state in the United States, like when all of these really ugly politics are happening right now, you know? And so in a way, like, in addition to being a really incredible person, it almost felt like her life was telling a story of what it means to live today. It's interesting because like when you look at the fashion media landscape now, the way most publications think about their covers is finding a celebrity with a massive following to get their fandom to engage, which results in wide amplification and visibility of that cover. so the metric you know that are going after i mean i talked to vanessa kingori when she was at condé and asked about this she said you know our goal is to create cultural moments while dropping those covers and you remember under edward ennenfoll's tenure there like some of those the rihanna cover and the you know there was just like one cover after another that would create it become news on the bbc but you guys are going completely different route which is you're putting someone that if you put this on the digital channels, like no one knows who this person is, you know, with a view of that thinking back to that coffee shop and creating a conversation, like how do you create a conversation around a subject that nobody knows and create, make that essence coffee shop.

35:25Now the ID coffee shop, an interesting place to be. You know, it's great that you made that connection because in a way, a lot of that decision was motivated by some of those earlier experiences like in the e-com world at O3 2C because I'd spend a lot of time like on the sort of magazine celebrity carousel. I've worked on viral covers and they can do so much for your exposure as like a small brand but at the end of the day it's really like a sugar high. That famous person's fans are there to see the person they like and actually what I've learned is that like, not that many of them actually like stick around, you know, and like not that many of them, you know, to go back to like the O3, 2C conversation or the type of people who would buy a t-shirt with the magazine's name on it or whatever, they would buy a t-shirt with the celebrity's name on it.

36:16So I think in a way, like really building a community around the magazine, like obviously like fame will be part of the magazine. And we actually did two other covers with very famous people. But I like this idea of making the magazine about the magazine rather than about who's on it necessarily. Right. And the thing that I think really got people talking on the internet wasn't the cover. It was the launch dinner you had during Paris Fashion Week when you managed to get Rick Owens and Michelle Lammy to host it at their house and ASAP Rocky shows up. How did you do that? honestly like a lot of it was really id magic you know because we did a really great story with rick that steph jatka wrote and it's a real like holistic retrospective of his work because he has this amazing like museum show coming up in paris and you know we learned in that process actually that his first kind of like solo feature about the brand was NID in 2002.

37:24Oh, amazing. And we actually unearthed the like original spread that he was in. And actually like the picture from that original spread is like in the museum show. And so there was a kind of like familial-ness to the way that evolved. And then the dinner itself also had a bit of that vibe. Like I remember like Rick ran into Carly and he was like, hey, like I remember when you were in my show and you were 15 years old and your mom had to come to the fitting. So there was all these kind of loops being closed. You know, Edward Ennful, who was the fashion director at ID, like very early in his career, was there.

38:00You know, photographers from the early ID, like Wolfgang Tillmans, Juergen Teller were there. So there was almost like this kind of amazing like alumni association effect that really propelled things forward. That's wonderful. And ASAP? I actually don't know how he ended up there. I just remember seeing it on my feed a lot, you know, and that's, I just thought it was, and our editorial team was talking about it and people were raising it. So clearly I wasn't the only one. Okay, so Tom, where do you go from here? Like, what's the plan? The plan is to make more great magazines. I think in a way, this first issue of the magazine is almost like an aesthetic and sort of editorial prototype that we're now bringing to life online, you know, even through things as simple as like redoing all of our social media graphics, redoing the way the website looks like, you know, we also want to move into like more like doing things on YouTube or with podcasts and like really kind of expanding the breadth and the scope based on like this kind of initial thesis statement.

39:07So that's going to be the big mission for the rest of the year. What's the biggest challenge? You know, to me, the biggest challenge is to constantly cut through the noise and to really retain a focus on what really matters in culture right now. Going back to earlier in the conversation, like when you're moving at the pace of the Internet, you can kind of get distracted really easily. You know, and so I think like in a way, like our main goal is to kind of like figure out the why of all these things we're experiencing and like really make that relevant to like the community that's reading us. It's also a really competitive space, like that youth media space, you know, not just High Snobiety and Hypebeast, but also Dazed.

39:57And like there's so many publications with some with shorter legacy, but really big digital footprints, somewhat like incredible legacy like Dazed. And everyone's kind of competing, not just for the same readers opening up their own coffee shops, but also for the same advertisers and partners and sponsors to like make it all work from a business standpoint. Yeah. I mean, in some ways, there is a competitive aspect to it. I'm a firm believer that a rising tide raises all ships in that sense, because I think that, to me, the reason that this space we're working in has grown is that more people care about fashion than they did 12 years ago when I started in the industry.

40:49There's a really great story that Kim Jones once told me that he was walking on the street in Chinatown with Kate Moss. And a bunch of like teenage boys started walking towards them. And he was like, oh, like they're all going to harass Kate or whatever. And the kids went up to them and they were like, hey, you're the Dior menswear designer. And it was like a group of like, you know, 16 year old kids like shopping for shoes or whatever. And this idea that like, you know, when I was 16, like, I didn't know like Galeano was the designer at Dior. Like I was interested in other stuff, you know. And so I think it's really interesting now that like how much the space has grown.

41:32And so to me, it's like I'm more interested in like growing the pie than like fighting over like a shrinking pie with other publications. That is absolutely true that fashion has become this kind of wider pillar in culture. But I actually think because of the way so many people consume content, editorial, whatever you want to call it, on TikTok, on Instagram, on other social channels, we're not just competing for people's eyeballs about fashion. And, you know, fashion intersects with sport, intersects with film, intersects with all of my personal interests in a single feed. And so really being able to engage people in an endless stream of content is like really, really hard.

42:20Yeah. And I think there was, you know, the way I often talk about fashion and the way it's been changing in the past couple of years is that I think there was this reckoning, whether it was conscious or not in the industry, that this like arms race for virality wasn't really serving brands, you know, because if you look back to like fashion week, like late pandemic, it's like everyone was going for like the biggest parlor trick they could. And it was all about like creating a kind of like watershed digital moment. But I think the reality is, is that you can create this huge like wave of eyeballs, but then like, are these people actually going to buy what you're selling, you know, or are they gonna get distracted and like be interested in like whatever brand is like the next online parlor trick and so or they just stick like a really famous k-pop thai afrobeats whatever celebrity or a stack of them in the front row and just like compete for how much attention they can garner from the fandoms of those stars but you know it takes me back to the same lesson that you said about the coffee shop?

43:30Like are people actually coming to hang out and do they want to put that brand on their body in some way or are they just there for the fan and then do they just take off? Yeah, and so I think we're kind of moving from this like attention era to like a retention era where like I think it feels like a lot of the smarter brands are like figuring out how to like build a narrative that people are invested in, build like a group of shoppers that follow the brand closely. I mean, like, I think Rick himself is a great example of it. Like he's developed this almost like this cult of people who like really wear his clothes, really follow what he's doing.

44:08Like they go to the shows, you know? And like, I think like more and more people are realizing that that's like a more successful strategy. And I think print actually like has a really important role in that because in a way, like, you know, print magazine isn't competing with a K-pop group in terms of eyeballs, but with a magazine like ID or like O3 2C or any like great biannual publication, like there's a really strong self-selected group that you're speaking to through it. That I think like in a way, when I talk to brands about media plans, like that's what they're interested in more than like the raw gross like impressions metrics or things like that.

44:53That's the holy grail. Okay, final question. Young people interested in media, interested in being an editor or art director or playing some other role in this space, like what advice or guidance do you have to offer them on how to succeed in a really, really interesting dynamic, but very complicated, challenging environment. I think the best advice I can give is to try and get as much experience as you possibly can. Even the experiences that I got in college making magazines or doing freelance work when I got out of college just to kind of like pay my rent, like it built like a body of knowledge that made it so much easier to be in my first magazine job and be able to like really run with it.

45:46You know, even if it means just like making your own fanzine or something, like just start getting in the habit of making stuff. And then I think that really contributes to anything you'll do in the future. Thank you, Tom. Best of luck with all things ID. I look, I really look forward to seeing how it develops. And as a media nerd, I really enjoyed that chat. So thank you. Thank you. That was a great chat. I love the questions. The BOF podcast is edited and produced by Olivia Davies and Eric Bria.