Never Enough

>> I’m not one for cheer leading digital hoo-ha that has been created purely for the sake of saying “Oh look, we so modern! We are DIGITAL” (whatever being “digital” means…). So present me with a the concept of a digital magazine cover and there might be some eye-rolling. But as it turns out, AnOther’s “digital cover” is the one that is the most arresting out of the lot. For their A/W 14 issue, they can’t get enough of Kate Moss and to celebrate her return to the cover of AnOther after ten years, they’ve created four very different print covers and one, what I think is a pretty ace digital cover. On print, Moss’ iconoclastic persona is interpreted as a Warholian muse by Willy Vanderperre, as a film star by Collier Schorr, a sensual girl lolling about the countryside by Alasdair McLellan and as a provocateur by Craig McDean.

For AnOther’s digital cover, in collaboration with Burberry, Moss is rendered in grainy black and white and moves like “liquid lightening” as described by Jefferson Hack. Renowned fashion film maker Ruth Hogben captures Moss beautifully, wearing a Burberry black patent trench coat, with dappled light and rain adding unexpected texture to these moving GIFs. “Kate has such a brilliant, uplifting energy and her movements in the various shiny silhouettes dance across the screen to hypnotic effect,” explains Katie Shillingford, AnOther’s fashion director who styled the cover. “You see something that is very real but at the same time you’re transported to a magical world… and that’s what fashion is about, isn’t it!” Both Hogben and Shillingford intuitively know how to ensure that film is completely distinct from still photography, as opposed to eking one out of the other. Sure, the cover lives in a digital sphere but it brings Moss alive with mesmerising effect and more impressively, showcases a different facet about present day Moss outside of her current portfolio of campaigns and editorials.

On a less ethereal note, the cover is of course another publishing milestone for Hack and Dazed Group in general. “We are digital first publishers… our audience love print and collecting the physical editions of the magazines but they voraciously consume culture through digital media,” says Hack. “We are fulfilling the demand for premium storytelling online and it’s working very well.”

The proof is in the pudding. Or in this case, the resulting imagery. You might not be able to physically hold the cover in your hand. But the image stays with you inside your head. And that’s what counts.