Saturday 24 January 2009

Style Salvage Speaks to... BUCK (part two)


Here's part two of our interview with the chaps at BUCK magazine. For part one click here.

SS: How do you see BUCK developing over the next couple of years?
SD: There are so many things that we want to do with it but and we don't want to bore you with this but there is so little cash around. It is difficult to know how it will pan out to be honest.

SS: I guess it must be difficult with BUCK when it comes to getting the right advertisers on board... you don't want just any old brand
SD: In a way I'd rather have ads for food and interiors, so we can be a bit more picky what we put into the fashion pages. As the magazine is settling in to its own stride now, we will turn our attentions more to the website, get a lot more video content up. You can just translate a lot of our features into video. For example 'In my room' could be turned into a three minute programme and depending on the production value it could be popular. Once you know what you want, and it has taken us several months, but now everyone here understands the brand, who our reader is and we always keep that person in mind, someone like yourself, are we targeting this to Style Salvage Steve? It can be easier to make decisions that way when you are going along, some magazines forget who they are actually targeting.

SS: I think with some magazines they have certainly lost sight of who their reader actually is, they have become diluted and as such don't really appeal to anyone and they can have a confused voice.
SD: Not everyone likes the design of the magazine. We had a really great response from people our age but people in their fifties find it a little arty. Which is strange...
EJS: It's because it isn't like GQ or Esquire...
SD: We just want to translate this online through video. We will start during fashion week. We are going to do video reports, backstage, street style outside of the shows and we have interviews with a couple of designers. it is going to be really complicated because we are so busy. Fashion is hard work.

SS: Oh fashion is hard work. People don't realise that it is actually quite demanding!
EJS: The hardest part is waiting around with no food...
SD: A few canapes and champagne. We are going to drink Prosecco for four days...

SS: BUCK is packed full of knowledgeable recommendations, from restaurants and shop addresses to the best red wine and how to tie a bow tie. Could you recommend something you've recently come across to our readers today? What is your favourite tip at the moment?
SD: Well, Elliot can do style... There is a new restaurant/bar called Derriere (in Paris) and it is the coolest place in the world.

SS: That is what is getting you excited right now?
SD: It is. We are going again when we go next week. It is absolutely incredible. It is at the back of a bar called Andy Waloo and it is set up by the same guy who set up Sketch in London and Momo. It is basically a house behind Andy Waloo, hence the name and it is completely secret...they don't advertise, there are no pictures, they basically don't tell anyone and it is one big house party inside with a restaurant kitchen. You go in and you have a lounge, dining room, a snug and a bedroom, dressing room and bathroom upstairs and you can eat anywhere. We ordered in the bedroom and it was fine to eat there as well, the guy was like...*puts on believable Parisian accent*...'You can order it here and we bring it to you, it is fine'. It is just really Parisian. The interior decor is just so eclectic, Philippe Starke ghost chairs next to a 60s black and white table, then beaten up leather sofas next to a real Louis XIV chair...all just so mismatched and really, really good.

SS: And your fashion tip Elliott?
EJS: What we have been thinking alot about recently and this links into the new design...is that what we'll see in the coming years is people actually ordering from the designers themselves, rather than going to x,y or z department store. It is great to contact the designers directly about pieces.

BUCK front covers, Steve at his desk and Elliott posing on the desk...

SS: I bought a cardigan from the Carola Euler 'Still' Collection and it was so nice speaking to the designer.
EJS: I ordered a few pieces as well and I bought a backpack from Sophie Hume. Car boot sales are still a big tip as well. Finding new ideas to update your wardrobe in the credit crunch.

SD: We always try to promote vintage. I went to Brick Lane on Sunday and half the shops had sales on, and I've never seen that before... I think the price of vintage is going to come down because it has been quite inflated over the years.

EJS: Vintage is a key element to BUCK, it highlights how we approach fashion. We see guys mix their grandad's shoes with Comme trousers and a tshirt their mum made them or something. There is always a place for high end and classic pieces. As we enter the recession, it makes sense to buy quality but much less.

SS: Last couple of questions now, what is the one question that you would like to be asked but never had the chance to answer?
SD: To answer the question in a round about way... Most people, when they meet me and they think of what I do, they get it completely wrong. They think I spend all day looking at clothes rails or the Habitat catalogue or something.

SS: That sounds like a dream job!
EJS: That is actually Laura's job.

SD: In fact, my day is spent responding to irritating emails and dealing with people (outside of this office) not doing their jobs properly. It is certainly not all high glamour but I absolutely love it!

SS: Ok, last question: when are you going to run a feature on men's style blogs?
*Noticed the hint that we'd like a feature*
SD: We could do, I mean we could get you in some other way, an at home with 'Steve and Susie'

SS: But then you would just see Susie's shoes everywhere!
EJS: I've seen, they are amazing!
SD: It is a funny thing though because when GQ does a similar feature, it focuses on the old guard telling you what is going on young people's culture. For us to do it, it would be somewhat odd because everyone know, if you know BUCK, you would probably know about the blogs already.
EJS: We all read everything and we want to offer something quite different. if we did do anything on blogs we would like to do it from a different point of view.
SD: We don't want to tell people what they should have on their blog reader.
EJS: The life cycle of some blogs can be very short. It is amazing how blogs like yours have been around for so long, grow it whilst keeping it up.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good stuff guys

Make Do Style said...

I'm lovin' a magazine called Buck and after reading both interviews a) I think well done on the advertising front and b) do they need a film critic?

Ian Brown said...

Excellent feature guys. I look forward to more of these in the future.

I especially like their last response on old guard magazines approach to youth culture. There's such a strange emaciated quality to those sort of rare experiments. Youth fashion culture is a legitimate origin of trends and market shifts. That shouldn't be that hard to recognize.

Anyway, best of luck to Buck.

Anonymous said...

Really enjoyed this second interview too. It's great to see Buck getting more exposure too - Steve Doyle was in today's Independent. If you by any chance do a part 3 of the interview, I'd be really intrigued to know how Steve made the jump from City worker to Vogue, Dazed & Wonderland!

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