June 1, 2011 |
FROM THE VOLT (WINTER 2010)
TERRY JONES: EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, I-D (1980-PRESENT)
“i-D was christened when Tricia and I had our morning board meeting in our double bath ’boardroom’ back in 1979. The name derived from the initials of my studio name, Informant Design.” However, it has also been said over the years that it stands for both identity and Freud’s id.
Launched in 1980, and sold from the back of Jones’s car no less, it cost 50p and sold only 50 copies. Apparently, the staples with which it was held together kept shredding peoples fingers and newsagents wouldn’t stock it, as anyone who looked through a copy would then proceed to drip blood over all the other magazines.
The aim was to get under the skin of fashion, which Jones did, pioneering, if you like, street-style shots with The Straight Up.
“The idea was to break down the pigeonholing of identity and fashion; to go beyond the façade of fashion so you could play it as a game. So you could have more fun with the codes of fashion. It was the idea that anybody could be a model, it was just having the confidence of your own style.“
i-D, in essence, embraced rather than alienated its reader. It communicated with them on a level that no magazine previously had. And all Jones had done was create something that he himself would like to flick through. One that, 30 years later, is still going strong, is still ahead of the curve and somehow, despite its “granddaddy” status, still speaks to the “new” youth in language only they can understand. How does he do it? “I only go on instinct and always try to follow my gut. I’ve never believed that market research would provide me with the satisfaction of making i-D. The risk is probably the rush that makes it addictive. My downside is that I am never fully satisfied when the issue comes off the press.”
by Natalie Dembinska
Photograph by Matt Jones
