If you're all about fashion but proudly geek out over aliens, MMORPGs, and brainwave sensors, then L_A_N —"A magazine for the fashionable futurist"—is probably already your favorite thing in the world. Maybe you think it sucks when other people find out about your exclusive, niche thing, but deal with it, because more people deserve to know about the obnoxiously oversized annual magazine that recognizes the future is fashion and fashion is the future.L_A_N editor Veronica So used to work at VICE Style, but don't call this nepotism—L_A_N deserves every word of praise it gets. I mean, where else are you going to find DIS Magazine content in print, or fashion shoots taking place in the virtual realm of Second Life? Nowhere. And quit trying, because L_A_N does it best anyway. Veronica also sings in Karl Lagerfeld's favorite band of 2010, namely the thrashed-out, dance punk outfit TEETH, who, unsurprisingly, are a perfect soundtrack to the pages of L_A_N.
The front covers of L_A_N issues 1 and 2.VICE: So, first off, what is the point of L_A_N?
Veronica So: I actually made the first L_A_N in my last year at Saint Martins and the brief was to make a DIY fashion magazine. I thought it would be my last chance to do anything fun before I had to go work full-time in the fashion closet at Another, or whatever, so I decided to do something geeky and also try to avoid working with all the press people and advertisers. It's so much more fulfilling to pick up a designer's collection from their apartment, rather than deal with a middle man who's a complete bitch to you.Ha ha, true. So did having no advertising play a big part in how you visualized the magazine in terms of art direction?
No, it was never like that, really. I just wasn't interested in hustling Smirnoff for free stuff, although I kind of wish I had someone to do all that stuff. The Kickstarter thing funded us, so we had 100% undiluted, non-sponsored content, which people love, and it makes L_A_N more collectible because it seems more like an art book. Saying that, I'd love, like, Google, Thierry Mugler, and Virgin Galactic to advertise. Oh, I also heard about these gold-plated office chair wheels by a luxury brand which would play into the content of the magazine really well. Plus, that's some executive realness right there.Wow, yeah. What would the ideal L_A_N office look like?
Oh man, the ultimate L_A_N lair would have crazy, minimalist evil furniture, iridescent everything, Zen water features, Giger furniture, and just be totally cold and reflective. I don't know, though, L_A_N is just a part of me, rather than all of me. Maybe 80% is L_A_N and into all that stuff, and the other 20% is TEETH, which is gross and messy.Spreads from Issue 1.Where did that 80% come from? Like, geeky, techie stuff isn't necessarily something you'd conventionally link with fashion.
Yeah, totally. I grew up in Silicon Valley and my dad is a microchip designer, inventor, and physics geek, then my uncle George was a huge fan of Star Wars and worked with Industrial Light & Magic, so I was surrounded by geeks who were showing me all this amazing stuff, but as a visual, creative person I could never really plug into what my dad did. Then he started to bring home these huge 5-foot printouts of the microchip designs from his computer and they're absolutely beautiful. With technology it's the mystery, vibe, and beauty that attracts fashion people, so it made a lot of sense to try and connect the two worlds together with L_A_N. It's really an educational magazine, I suppose.Educating fashion people about the future and future people about fashion?
Yeah, educating people interested in science and the internet about fashion, and fashion people about internet culture and MMO games and architecture and shit. I dunno. The best example is Warren Ellis, who knows nothing about fashion, per se, but wrote the comic Transmetropolitan, which is based in the future, and the illustrator Darick Robertson came up with the most outrageous fashions for these, like, half-human, half-alien things in the comic. They look insane in a great way, and it wasn't intentionally fashionable, but that's the ultimate fashion comic for me.Yeah, there's something about the future that just makes stuff look amazing. Every good movie set in the future looks super-fashion. Like The Fifth Element, Akira, and Dune are all very stylish.
Yeah, exactly. It gives people freedom to imagine whatever they want, because there are absolutely no restrictions in what could be possible for fashion in the future. Obviously it was Jean Paul Gaultier who did the costumes for The Fifth Element, so they were always going to look incredible. He's definitely one of those people who lives in their own realm of time, whatever that is. Gaultier actually inspired the upcoming L_A_N collection quite a bit.Spreads from Issue 2.Oh yeah, tell me about this collection.
Well, I decided that if L_A_N was going to be for the fashionable futurist, we were going to have to do something with fashion at some point. Primitive invited L_A_N to go to Tokyo in April, so I decided that would be a good time to do it. L_A_N is basically this treasure trove of great imagery and layouts, so I thought why not use it as a graphic digital print? The collection will basically be unisex, all digitally-printed see-through poly mesh, and it'll be readable because every article from L_A_N 2 is going to be on there. They're basically Jean Paul Gaultier's Soleil t-shirts from the 90s covered in L_A_N layouts. I can't wait to be sued.Ha. That's amazing. So are you gonna do one for each issue?
The dream is to have enough money to print a whole L_A_N collection, one for each issue, with each outfit or look made up of one editorial feature. I'll put them in a Vanessa Beecroft-type setting and have super-relevant, awesome models, and completely transcend print publishing problems. That's when I get this $50,000 art grant and have an office, ha ha.The magazine's about futurism. How come you're still printing and not making the issues for iPads and tablets?
We're going to for the next issue. I'm not so much of a digital person that I forget the beauty of a printed page or how much humans need to connect with books. Also, I think people don't realize how big L_A_N actually is and I love that it's just so obnoxiously huge and collectible.A teaser for L_A_N's upcoming clothing line.It is. I've kept my copy of issue 2 in mint condition. It's on a bookshelf with all my comics and other books that I get embarrassingly protective over.
Yeah, exactly—you get really nerdy about it like, "Oh my God, keep it in the plastic sleeve, please!" I think it's funny how people treat L_A_N. You'd never cut out your favorite spread to put it on the wall like you would with other magazines, it's all very "under glass," if you know what I mean?Yeah, definitely. Does content have to have some kind of futurist vibe to make it into the magazine?
A lot of the designers we cover could probably be called futuristic, in that they use 3D printing and stuff, but I just really like textures, prints, and colors, so if it's good enough and not futuristic, it would still have a place. In terms of other stuff, I try to publish things that would never usually get published in a fashion magazine, like this story about X Files: The Musical, which is neither fashionable or futuristic, but it's just so completely awesome. So the answer is no, you don't absolutely have to be cool, fashionable, or relevant to the future, but generally the magazine is very tightly curated so it all makes sense together.Cool. I remember you told me a while ago about how The X-Files informs a lot of L_A_N.
Yeah, that show is the one thing I truly geeked out over during my teenage years and the art direction and overall vibe has definitely had an impact on L_A_N. It's the sexiest, most intelligent show, and the characters are so intensely intelligent, emotional, and subtle, and they're dealing with things that no one can actually really understand, but are able to break it down in a totally not dumb way that makes you feel like a really smart 15-year-old, without making you feel like a nerd. The show talks to you like you get it, but just don't know about it yet.So is that kind of what you try and do with L_A_N? Inform people of cool stuff they want to know about in a non-condescending way?
Yeah, exactly that. No one likes to be alienated, which is partly why L_A_N isn't very opinionated, beyond its curation, obviously. The tone is very WikiSpeak, but I don't know if that's its destiny, I think I'm just waiting for the right tone to establish itself.I reckon that Mugler Second Life story you did got the tone pretty spot-on. Can you tell me more about it?
Okay, so Thierry Mugler did this brilliant marketing campaign for his Womanity perfume line where he rented an island in Second Life and got all these French programmers to build an island with a mad scientist's laboratory and all sorts of lovely details—gardens, a gallery space, and free Thierry Mugler Second Life wearable objects. Just loads to explore, basically. So I did a travel shoot, had my avatar pose in front of things, in hot tubs, in a Thierry Mugler belt, and then wrote a bit about Second Life and how brands like Adidas and American Apparel were selling their t-shirts in this other world with real money.What do you think about all that?
I think it's weird. I don't know if I'm cheap, but I'm kind of like that in real life. I love fashion, but I prefer a free Thierry Mugler belt over paying 35 Linden Dollars for a neon t-shirt on Second Life, just because not everyone would necessarily have it, you know? I dunno, if you can program you can look fucking good for free and if you can't, you're a sucker. There are these Japanese street-style books on Second Life and they're amazing. They're like Fruits for Second Life, but it's all the standard fairy wings, Lolita dresses, big lashes things all the time, which is a little boring. The idea is always better than the scope, sadly, so the avatars are never really better than a new Final Fantasy character, or something.That is sad. Lastly, why is the future so important to fashion?
It doesn't really matter if we end up in space or underground or another planet, it's the idea that humans will need to change that drives fashion. In a tiny sense it's like, "Oh, what will I wear for fall?" And that same thought can be applied to the future too, because we're always coming up with new textiles, new ways to apply them, and new ways to keep changing. Fashion doesn't necessarily need to change and react as quickly as it's gotten into a habit of doing, but that's a part of our culture of being neurotic and always making and producing.For more on fashion, visit VICE Style.
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The front covers of L_A_N issues 1 and 2.VICE: So, first off, what is the point of L_A_N?
Veronica So: I actually made the first L_A_N in my last year at Saint Martins and the brief was to make a DIY fashion magazine. I thought it would be my last chance to do anything fun before I had to go work full-time in the fashion closet at Another, or whatever, so I decided to do something geeky and also try to avoid working with all the press people and advertisers. It's so much more fulfilling to pick up a designer's collection from their apartment, rather than deal with a middle man who's a complete bitch to you.Ha ha, true. So did having no advertising play a big part in how you visualized the magazine in terms of art direction?
No, it was never like that, really. I just wasn't interested in hustling Smirnoff for free stuff, although I kind of wish I had someone to do all that stuff. The Kickstarter thing funded us, so we had 100% undiluted, non-sponsored content, which people love, and it makes L_A_N more collectible because it seems more like an art book. Saying that, I'd love, like, Google, Thierry Mugler, and Virgin Galactic to advertise. Oh, I also heard about these gold-plated office chair wheels by a luxury brand which would play into the content of the magazine really well. Plus, that's some executive realness right there.
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Oh man, the ultimate L_A_N lair would have crazy, minimalist evil furniture, iridescent everything, Zen water features, Giger furniture, and just be totally cold and reflective. I don't know, though, L_A_N is just a part of me, rather than all of me. Maybe 80% is L_A_N and into all that stuff, and the other 20% is TEETH, which is gross and messy.Spreads from Issue 1.Where did that 80% come from? Like, geeky, techie stuff isn't necessarily something you'd conventionally link with fashion.
Yeah, totally. I grew up in Silicon Valley and my dad is a microchip designer, inventor, and physics geek, then my uncle George was a huge fan of Star Wars and worked with Industrial Light & Magic, so I was surrounded by geeks who were showing me all this amazing stuff, but as a visual, creative person I could never really plug into what my dad did. Then he started to bring home these huge 5-foot printouts of the microchip designs from his computer and they're absolutely beautiful. With technology it's the mystery, vibe, and beauty that attracts fashion people, so it made a lot of sense to try and connect the two worlds together with L_A_N. It's really an educational magazine, I suppose.Educating fashion people about the future and future people about fashion?
Yeah, educating people interested in science and the internet about fashion, and fashion people about internet culture and MMO games and architecture and shit. I dunno. The best example is Warren Ellis, who knows nothing about fashion, per se, but wrote the comic Transmetropolitan, which is based in the future, and the illustrator Darick Robertson came up with the most outrageous fashions for these, like, half-human, half-alien things in the comic. They look insane in a great way, and it wasn't intentionally fashionable, but that's the ultimate fashion comic for me.
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Yeah, exactly. It gives people freedom to imagine whatever they want, because there are absolutely no restrictions in what could be possible for fashion in the future. Obviously it was Jean Paul Gaultier who did the costumes for The Fifth Element, so they were always going to look incredible. He's definitely one of those people who lives in their own realm of time, whatever that is. Gaultier actually inspired the upcoming L_A_N collection quite a bit.Spreads from Issue 2.Oh yeah, tell me about this collection.
Well, I decided that if L_A_N was going to be for the fashionable futurist, we were going to have to do something with fashion at some point. Primitive invited L_A_N to go to Tokyo in April, so I decided that would be a good time to do it. L_A_N is basically this treasure trove of great imagery and layouts, so I thought why not use it as a graphic digital print? The collection will basically be unisex, all digitally-printed see-through poly mesh, and it'll be readable because every article from L_A_N 2 is going to be on there. They're basically Jean Paul Gaultier's Soleil t-shirts from the 90s covered in L_A_N layouts. I can't wait to be sued.Ha. That's amazing. So are you gonna do one for each issue?
The dream is to have enough money to print a whole L_A_N collection, one for each issue, with each outfit or look made up of one editorial feature. I'll put them in a Vanessa Beecroft-type setting and have super-relevant, awesome models, and completely transcend print publishing problems. That's when I get this $50,000 art grant and have an office, ha ha.
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We're going to for the next issue. I'm not so much of a digital person that I forget the beauty of a printed page or how much humans need to connect with books. Also, I think people don't realize how big L_A_N actually is and I love that it's just so obnoxiously huge and collectible.A teaser for L_A_N's upcoming clothing line.It is. I've kept my copy of issue 2 in mint condition. It's on a bookshelf with all my comics and other books that I get embarrassingly protective over.
Yeah, exactly—you get really nerdy about it like, "Oh my God, keep it in the plastic sleeve, please!" I think it's funny how people treat L_A_N. You'd never cut out your favorite spread to put it on the wall like you would with other magazines, it's all very "under glass," if you know what I mean?Yeah, definitely. Does content have to have some kind of futurist vibe to make it into the magazine?
A lot of the designers we cover could probably be called futuristic, in that they use 3D printing and stuff, but I just really like textures, prints, and colors, so if it's good enough and not futuristic, it would still have a place. In terms of other stuff, I try to publish things that would never usually get published in a fashion magazine, like this story about X Files: The Musical, which is neither fashionable or futuristic, but it's just so completely awesome. So the answer is no, you don't absolutely have to be cool, fashionable, or relevant to the future, but generally the magazine is very tightly curated so it all makes sense together.
Advertisement
Yeah, that show is the one thing I truly geeked out over during my teenage years and the art direction and overall vibe has definitely had an impact on L_A_N. It's the sexiest, most intelligent show, and the characters are so intensely intelligent, emotional, and subtle, and they're dealing with things that no one can actually really understand, but are able to break it down in a totally not dumb way that makes you feel like a really smart 15-year-old, without making you feel like a nerd. The show talks to you like you get it, but just don't know about it yet.So is that kind of what you try and do with L_A_N? Inform people of cool stuff they want to know about in a non-condescending way?
Yeah, exactly that. No one likes to be alienated, which is partly why L_A_N isn't very opinionated, beyond its curation, obviously. The tone is very WikiSpeak, but I don't know if that's its destiny, I think I'm just waiting for the right tone to establish itself.I reckon that Mugler Second Life story you did got the tone pretty spot-on. Can you tell me more about it?
Okay, so Thierry Mugler did this brilliant marketing campaign for his Womanity perfume line where he rented an island in Second Life and got all these French programmers to build an island with a mad scientist's laboratory and all sorts of lovely details—gardens, a gallery space, and free Thierry Mugler Second Life wearable objects. Just loads to explore, basically. So I did a travel shoot, had my avatar pose in front of things, in hot tubs, in a Thierry Mugler belt, and then wrote a bit about Second Life and how brands like Adidas and American Apparel were selling their t-shirts in this other world with real money.What do you think about all that?
I think it's weird. I don't know if I'm cheap, but I'm kind of like that in real life. I love fashion, but I prefer a free Thierry Mugler belt over paying 35 Linden Dollars for a neon t-shirt on Second Life, just because not everyone would necessarily have it, you know? I dunno, if you can program you can look fucking good for free and if you can't, you're a sucker. There are these Japanese street-style books on Second Life and they're amazing. They're like Fruits for Second Life, but it's all the standard fairy wings, Lolita dresses, big lashes things all the time, which is a little boring. The idea is always better than the scope, sadly, so the avatars are never really better than a new Final Fantasy character, or something.That is sad. Lastly, why is the future so important to fashion?
It doesn't really matter if we end up in space or underground or another planet, it's the idea that humans will need to change that drives fashion. In a tiny sense it's like, "Oh, what will I wear for fall?" And that same thought can be applied to the future too, because we're always coming up with new textiles, new ways to apply them, and new ways to keep changing. Fashion doesn't necessarily need to change and react as quickly as it's gotten into a habit of doing, but that's a part of our culture of being neurotic and always making and producing.For more on fashion, visit VICE Style.