Stefano Tonchi, L'Officiel's new Global Chief Creative Officer, heralds the title to its 100th year.

Had it been normal times, my interview with Stefano Tonchi would&rsquo;ve begun with a coy wave and concluded with a firm handshake. But, alas, we&rsquo;re not living in normal times. We settled for a video call at nine o&rsquo;clock, which was morning for him and night for me. Despite the time difference, we covered a lot of common ground.
Tonchi reviews his schedule: &ldquo;What I do, you know, I spend a lot of time talking to people. Paced out like this today&mdash;at eight usually, I&rsquo;m on video call until six o&rsquo;clock. In the morning, there&rsquo;s Asia and then a little bit of Europe in the middle of the day and then South America.&rdquo;
I nod and observe Tonchi from his New York home. He&rsquo;s relaxed and attentive despite the ripple of messages squalling for his attention. Considering that 2020 did a number on most people, I check how he&rsquo;s faring, especially with his recent appointment as Global Chief Creative Officer for L&rsquo;Officiel. He answers, &ldquo;It has been a very difficult year for two reasons: one, because we&rsquo;re going into a structural change in the publishing industry with the transformation from print to digital, and then because of COVID, all these changes have gone much faster and much more dramatic.&rdquo; Simply put, &ldquo;change is on steroids,&rdquo; he says.
With changes happening left and right, it seemed timely for L&rsquo;Officiel to call Tonchi. Known for his tenure at W Magazine and T: The New York Times Style Magazine, the seasoned editor has witnessed publications peak and decline, yet he continues to size up the industry&rsquo;s potential, hopeful of a positive reckoning. &ldquo;I think social media and the digital revolution has really changed this relationship of power... we&rsquo;re in a period of transition. We&rsquo;ve been throwing away everything that is old, everything that is print, everything that our parents used to rely on, but somehow we will find a balance.&rdquo; &ldquo;How does that apply to L&rsquo;Officiel?&rdquo; I ask, thrilled by the prospect of what appears to be a renewal of professional vows. &ldquo;I think it&rsquo;s interesting because I came from a lot of visual jobs like Creative Director at Esquire... and then most recently, I was the editor of W Magazine. When I left, I really didn&rsquo;t want to work on magazines, and then the people from L&rsquo;Officiel, the Jalou family, contacted me because they want me to work on organizing the centennial for the brand. L&rsquo;Officiel started in 1921 in Paris as the L&rsquo;Officiel de la couture et de la mode de Paris. That says a lot about what the magazine stands for. It&rsquo;s the official voice of fashion and couture from Paris.&rdquo;

Now with 31 editions worldwide, L&rsquo;Officiel has grown beyond its French-ness. Its widespread mobility has allowed the magazine to transform its pages into a multi-platform publishing model bridging local and global communities. What started as a trade magazine for buyers of high fashion (which advanced the careers of Pierre Balmain, Crist&oacute;bal Balenciaga, Christian Dior, and Yves Saint Laurent) has expanded so much to the point that it could benefit from a return to form.
Tonchi explains, &ldquo;I started thinking about what the DNA of the brand is, and then they told me, &lsquo;Well, what do you think are we doing today?&rsquo; and I said, &lsquo;I think you&rsquo;re a little bit too avant-garde sometimes... I think we should focus again on fashion. That&rsquo;s what the brand is about.&rsquo; I don&rsquo;t want to talk about fashion in an abstract sense. It means a lot of things. It&rsquo;s about gender. It&rsquo;s about race. It&rsquo;s about sustainability. But it&rsquo;s fashion, you know. It&rsquo;s not about art. It&rsquo;s not about politics. I think the magazine is doing a lot of different things but not enough of the core that is fashion.&rdquo;
After consuming more than 70,000 images from more than a thousand issues, he&rsquo;s confident about this direction: It&rsquo;s all about &ldquo;telling true stories about fashion. It&rsquo;s a magazine that is always very international. I don&rsquo;t know if you know this, but when it started &mdash; it was in three different languages. It was in Spanish, French, and English. Then some parts of the magazine were translated in German and Italian,&rdquo; he says.
As an Italian living in America, he&rsquo;s aware that most of L&rsquo;Officiel&rsquo;s contemporaries focus on the Anglo-Saxon perspective from New York and London. This makes him eager to shift the cultural gaze so that readers can zoom out and watch what the rest of the world has to offer. He elaborates, &ldquo;In Italy, L&rsquo;Officiel is very fashion-oriented. It&rsquo;s very much about fashion avant-garde... They are starting to be very good at digital, but they are still very much a print magazine. In Thailand, they started as a digital company and did a very wonderful strategy of collaborating with local influencers and celebrities... then they do some beautiful print issues that are more special.&rdquo;

In Ukraine and Austria, they love tradition and luxury, so you&rsquo;ll see a lot of jewelry, which is in contrast with Asia, where a young generation favors modernity and clothes for the message they carry. &ldquo;What unifies the brand is that we&rsquo;re about luxury and anything French. I think there&rsquo;s a certain kind of tradition with French fashion, and I think everybody that picks up this magazine loves France and would like to be in Paris,&rdquo; he says.
Tonchi, however, is quick to emphasize that L&rsquo;Officiel&rsquo;s desire to influence stems from the intention of equal exchange. He recalls, &ldquo;The editor-in-chief had too much power, was always preaching from the pulpit, and it was very often that communication between the magazine is always from the top down. Now, the readers have more power and that&rsquo;s great.&rdquo;
This nascent yearning for democratization impacts how magazines are evolving. In the 80s and 90s, niches were a big deal and publications provided an outlet for subcultures to reach the mainstream. Fast-forward to 2021, Tonchi believes, &ldquo;Niches are going to be important again... They are very, very small but very, very deep... What I found happening with the speed of the internet is that things take much longer to go from the underground to the mainstream [before]. Today, it goes very fast. Somebody is a phenomenon in the niche world and is suddenly on TV talking to everybody.&rdquo;
Fortunately, Tonchi is even-keeled in his sense of timing. He took it to heart to practice what his mentor Alexandra Penney once advised: &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t be too early but don&rsquo;t be too late.&rdquo; He stresses, &ldquo;I think you should always think about news as a living organism. You don&rsquo;t want to publish too early because nobody would pick it up and too many people could steal your idea. On the other hand, you don&rsquo;t want to be the last one when everybody is talking about something. That&rsquo;s the job of a good editor &mdash; to try to be at the perfect time.&rdquo;
As our conversation draws to a close, he conjures an image of post-pandemic life &mdash; how it will probably resemble the roaring 20s after the war, which happens to be the same era L&rsquo;Officiel conceived its first edition. One-hundred years later, the magazine is still bright and sprightly. Tonchi has faith that things will continue to stack up favorably. &ldquo;We will not be dancing in the street, but I think there will be time to party,&rdquo; he quips.

Niches are going to be important again... They are very, very small but very, very deep...&nbsp;

The Speed of Things: Stefano Tonchi

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