Claire Milbrath shares her best bits of Editorial Magazine's new issue

If Editorial Magazine came out monthly or weekly, It’s Nice That would be full of articles about it. Each time it’s released founding editor Claire Milbrath brings something brilliantly new to the table, from her commissioning to the subjects the articles dive into. The most recent issue has just done it once again. But, rather than ramble on about it ourselves, we’ve let Claire take the reigns this time.

Below, Claire picks out her favourite parts of the mag’s 18th issue, with little back stories to each of the features crafted in it.

The Masthead

Claire Milbrath: I picked out the masthead as a fave spread because I’m in love with Paul Descamps’ title pages throughout the issue. I stumbled across his work deep in the net and it took a while to track down his contact. Paul’s a young, emerging artist from eastern France. His watercolour and felt-pen descriptions of magical elves and weeds seemed to give a narrative overtone to the issue, like reading through the issue was an adventure or celebration of sorts. One funny thing about his title pages is that the opening letters were drawn before we wrote any copy, so we had to get creative assigning heads for the letters, hence “Unique urges?”

You are God

CM: For this issue Maya Fuhr and Talvi Faustmann pitched a fashion shoot inspired by the most famous women of Televangelism. I find the Televangelist movement endlessly fascinating, the apex of religion, glamour and greed rolled up into one giant line of cocaine. Rebecca Storm provides tongue-in-cheek bios on each, for Jan Crouch, Tammy Faye Bakker and Juanita Bynum. I think it’s one of my favourite shoots Maya Fuhr has shot for us. I had to do a double take to realise the Tammy Faye Bakker character was a self-portrait.

Nhozagri

CM: Nhozagri is a Beijing-based artist who creates hand-made stuffed animals. I’m obsessed with stuffies and have always wanted to find a way to get them in the magazine without outing myself as at the mentally unhinged grown woman that I am. Finding Nhozagri’s work was a breakthrough on that front. Of all the different types of art, painting, readymades, photography, Nhozagri’s sculptures stand out to me as useful, a piece of art you can love and hold. Each animal is “born,” Nhozagri told me in our interview, with a unique backstory. If you look into each of their eyes you can see a tiny painting that tells the story of the animal.

Monika Nogi

CM: In issue 18, it’s exciting to see a photographer like Monika Mogi, also one of our editors, stray from her primary medium. Her new work for us feels a lot like painting. Monika shot her muse Kiko Mizuhara and inserted her into these bled-out sex ads. These Japanese “Find Love” ads are typically found in the back pages of a magazine to advertise for escorts and telephone-sex work, something that is now tragically illegal in the US, and Canada by proxy.

Nosesso

CM: Nosesso is a fashion house based in LA that stands for “no sex, no gender.” Headed by the iconic Pierre Davis, the brand has taken off in the past few months so we’re really happy to have worked with them while we could have! Davis and her amazing team constructed this feast scene reminiscent of a Renaissance painting starring the amazing Jasmine. The deep black backgrounds remind me in particular of Caravaggio’s paintings, who makes an appearance later in the issue.

Char Esme

CM: “I’m ready to tell you a couple of vulgar secrets ;)” a headless, vagina-forehead doll says in Char Esme’s spread “The Secretary Your Million Bride.” Char is a regular carte-blanche contributor to the magazine, meaning she gets a number of blank pages to do whatever she wants. Her graphic design work is mind-bending, it serves as a peephole into how high-functioning her brain must be. Her artwork itself is funny, gross, mysterious. I’m obsessed!

Chai

CM: Chai is an all-girl band from Japan consisting of twin sisters Mana and Kana, and their friends Yuna and Yuki. Their aesthetic is really fun, they’re often wearing matching huge tees or running through the streets with painted faces. I love Chai’s attitude and I’m so happy with how this editorial turned out.

Ambera Wellman

CM: This is our spotlight on Canadian Berlin-based artist Ambera Wellman. In her six-page spread, we show her picture-perfect porcelain paintings (many people mistake them for real 3D sculptures) as well as her newer, messier erotic paintings. I like seeing the evolution of an artist, and Ambera is a fun one to watch because she’s a courageous painter. This one, in particular, is my favourite, I find it really hot. Ambera is a good interview subject because she’s so candid; she talks honestly about what it’s like to be an artist (and the struggles herein) which is really helpful for me, and hopefully other artists, to hear.

Victoria at Home

CM: Victoria Dailey is a writer I met recently in LA. Chatty, critical, prolific, and always with a great outfit, Victoria is exactly the type of muse we’re looking to showcase. Victoria at Home is a personal tour of Victoria’s Beverly Hills home and closet. Logan White, who’s art photography we featured in the last issue, shot these amazingly glam portraits. This story is part of a greater push toward editorials that focus on self-expression, instead of brand-driven fashion editorials we see too much. The majority of the editorials in our new issue feature “non-models,” wearing non-branded clothing they’ve chosen themselves — see our cover girl Agusta for one.

Brook Hsu

CM: These paintings are from Brook Hsu’s latest body of work Panic Angel, which is all about the Greek god Pan. I read her semi-fictional essay on Pan and fell in love with her paintings. Pan is a country god of the wild, companion of nymphs. The word panic derives from Pan, who when woken from sleep could cause sudden fear in the woods. I asked Brook to write something for the issue as well, she proposed an interview with a Wood Ear Mushroom, which you can read on page 35.