POV: The cool factor of zines draws brands, and hurts publishing

For the past decade, print media has been in flux. Not a year of my career as an independent magazine founder has gone by without someone, somewhere declaring print is either dead or back. We’ve seen a slew of publications change form in that time: from industry-wide pivots to video, and the shuttering of Gal-Dem, to Paper and Interview both closing, then being resurrected, and supermodel Karlie Kloss buying i-D.

When I started Polyester in 2014, indie publications were having a particularly ripe moment. Aside from my own, magazines such as Mushpit, Sister and Riposte, alongside zines such as OOMK, The Chapess and Diaspora Drama, were all providing an alternative to the glossies and established fashion bibles that lined the racks of newsagents. I’d spend most of my week at zine fairs, thumbing through publications that people had secretly printed on their work photocopier or spent months lovingly curating on shoestring budgets. It felt like a time in which independent media stood toe-to-toe with publications that had dominated the publishing industry for years prior.

But as print costs rose and editors struggled to generate an income, more of my publication peers began disappearing just as the cultural cache of self-publishing reached its peak. With brands desperate to cash in on the cool factor of zines but unwilling to take a perceived risk on new publications, what began as a genuinely DIY movement has now morphed into a capitalist hellscape – brands making their own zines and magazines.

Most brand magazines sort of read like an Argos catalogue designed by a Central Saint Martins student – glossy spreads with sans serif fonts, expensive editorials and a slew of talent all promoting specific products by whichever brand has spearheaded the publication. Last week, the dating app Feeld launched AFM (A Fucking Magazine), with the editor’s letter stating: “Starting a print publication (anytime, let alone at this time) feels like, if not a provocation, then a true dare. We wanted to clench our fists and pound the table and declare loudly that, yes, we were going to make a fucking magazine.”

It seems that, in 2024, the only people that can truly afford to make magazines are the ones who work for big brands. It’s easy to take a leap when your venture is backed by corporate cash; Bottega Veneta have been releasing a regular ‘zine’ (read: very expensive, limited edition boxed magazine), since 2021. Doordash publishes Secret Menu, “a celebration of the restaurants that are integral to local communities”. Porter, Net-A-Porter’s magazine, has been a mainstay in the fashion publishing scene for years. Converse, Cash App and Nando’s have all dipped their toe into the world of print.

Clearly I'm biased – I’ve built my career working in the independent media space, and truly believe that, at their best, magazines can help shape culture and communities. But I’m not naive, nor am I a DIY purist; Polyester relies on brand partnerships of our own to keep the doors open. I understand that at their best, brands and publications can create work that genuinely serves the communities these magazines exist for.

Undoubtedly, as budgets tighten within journalism, these publications are also keeping journalists and creatives in jobs. Rarely a week goes by without another round of redundancies announced via ‘looking for freelance work’ tweets, and those who take jobs at branded publications are often industry leaders who can no longer attempt to survive on unpaid invoices.

Still, I can’t help but dream of a world in which independent publications are properly funded and thriving. We have to reject the notion that brands can do a better job than established zines themselves at communicating and connecting with people. New publications may not have the Instagram followers of the mainstay magazines, but our readers are often more engaged and seek genuine community within the pages of print. I want to see publications like The Fat Zine, Perfectly Imperfect, Azeema and, of course, Polyester given the time and funding to last the course and create legacies that cement the same cultural impact of their predecessors.

Brands have clearly been allured by the opportunity to control their editorial output, but who, really, is cherishing a brand-made magazine for years to come? Publications should be pawed over, their pages ripped out, stuck onto bedroom walls and planting seeds of formative cultural experiences for their readers. While the Argos catalogue may be nostalgic for everyone who grew up in the 90s, we aren’t crediting its pages for making us who we are. I suspect that in years to come, we’ll yearn for the days of zine fairs and hastily put-together print over the glossy magazine selling us shoes, dinner and sex.