“Good question. Let this pretentious magazine give you the answer.
This biannual printed magazine is available here (yes, they ship internationally)
Creator: Laurent Laporte
Heidi: You founded this project 10 years ago, looking back, what would you tell your younger self?
Laurent: You were absolutely right not to listen to people who try to demotivate you.
How has the content evolved as you’ve gone from a blog to Instagram, and finally print?
In a completely organic and instinctive way and by making mistakes that make you learn and understand how things work, more or less.
What notes need to be hit to be featured in Where is the Cool?
It is also very instinctive. It’s very contextual, each issue starts as a puzzle, and sometimes you know which pieces are a miss, sometimes you just find it without really looking after it.
How did your background in advertising inform your decision to make this magazine and not include ads?
99% of the time advertising is aesthetically disgraceful or not in line with the aesthetic of the magazine. I wanted to make something pure where nothing comes to break the attention of the reader. Also, we only talk about cool things and there are not so many cool brands today.
People say print is dead (I disagree) what are your thoughts on advertising being dead?
It depends on who is talking. I know that many people interested in fashion, love to buy fashion magazines and also to see the ads. It gives them today’s tone, and keeps them aware of what’s happening. On my side, I don’t even know how I can explain how much I found this lame.
The variety of subjects in each issue is very diverse. Is there a personal thread tying everything together, or a subtle theme for the viewers to enjoy finding for themselves?
It’s a personal project at the end, so I speak most of the time about very subjective opinions trying to make them in a very objective way.
So refreshing! A magazine with more photography than writing but still something to say and engage in cover to cover in 1 hour. Why 21 topics? (I read you cover 21 items an issue)
It was a model that worked well when I needed a reassuring structure of the puzzle. Now it’s more free.
What are the hardest parts of producing such a magazine that most people wouldn’t even think of?
Nothing is hard here, if you believe in it, it happens. Constraints make things happen. Will it work? You will know that later, as with every project. But in the end you made something and the that’s most important part.
How do people pitch in ideas?
I receive a lot of pitches every day from a lot of people who never bought the mag, so they don’t understand the editorial line behind it. It’s me pitching photographers with ideas most of the time.
I enjoyed your piece on Relax Watch, can you share how that piece came about?
I stumbled upon that interesting project about Rolex parody watches and I find it super interesting. It looks like another signal in my head about the saturation of luxury things. In a world that needs to step back, it’s very strange that people still want to stay in a world of ostentatious things that do not fit with the new ideals we should look for today.