The Gentlewoman … A New Breed

by Black Forest

It’s time to separate the style from the sleaze, the women from the teens. Yes. The highly anticipated sister of men’s magazine Fantastic Man, The Gentlewoman has finally arrived. From ‘Ga-Ga Ooh la la’ to kick ass ‘Kathryn Bigelow’, it’s been a great start to the decade for super stylish female talent in the media – and so, the time is now for The Gentlewoman to represent this breed of  female style intelligentsia. Read TMC’s exclusive interview with self-made editor-in-chief Penny Martin to find out who The Gentlewoman really is, and why she’s more than just endless celeb goss and airbrushed images– Including a few words of wisdom just for the TMC woman…

B.F – “Tell us a little more about ‘The Gentlewoman”

P.M – “The Gentlewoman comes from the makers of “The Gentleman’s Style Journal” Fantastic Man –– The Gentlewoman is a new biannual style magazine for a new decade, for and about inspirational, international women. It pairs ambitious journalism with a sartorial and intelligent perspective on fashion that is focused on personal style – the way women actually look, think and dress”.

B.F – “How do you manifest this”?

P.M – “Where we’ve tried to be different is in choosing a broader range of women represented, beyond the field of fashion, in focusing on in-depth journalism that emphasises women’s voices (and not just their appearance) and in commissioning candid, natural-looking photography. That may not sound so radical but when you look at most fashion and style publishing at the moment, it’s quite startling how narrow and far from reality magazines have become. It was just a case of choosing women that we really thought were great – some very familiar, some not”.

B.F – “Why now? Tell us a little bit about your creative journey”?

P.M – “I had been thinking of creating a women’s version of Fantastic Man for some time, having fielded questions from women demanding “why isn’t there something like this for us?”

Gert and Jop (makers of Fantastic Man) and I had been thinking of creating a women’s version for some time , about two years ago, and we’ve been hatching plans since for a personality based and a sartorially-driven magazine for women. Over that time, I left my previous job at SHOWstudio.com, where I was editor for seven years, and took up a Professorship at London College of Fashion (University of the Arts London). But when I heard that Gert and Jop were definitely launching the new title, about a year ago, I absolutely had to be involved. It’s a great time to launch a positive, optimistic magazine about modern women”.

B.F – “Leaving SHOWstudio after seven years is a brave step; how then would you say your past experiences fit in with this project”?

P.M – “Well, my background is actually in museums: I started as a curator of photography at the National Museum of Photography, Film & Television, as it was then, and then took up a curatorial post at The Women’s Library, which holds the oldest collection of women’s magazines in the world. At that point (the late 90s), I was doing PhD research at the Royal College of Art part-time, on British fashion magazines and Thatcherism, so fashion photography and magazines have been a continuous thread through what might seem like a very disparate career”.

SHOWstudio was an incredible experience, in so many ways. I think I was involved in excess of 400 different projects there. That was my first taste of a start-up culture, the commercial sector and of commissioning photographers, writers, filmmakers and so on. There was no going back.

Penny’s continuous thread for fashion photography is still looming. She is currently professor of fashion imagery at the London College of Fashion as well as teaching postgraduate courses in fashion journalism. Penny is particularly proud that:

“The Gentlewoman has so many women photographers, which isn’t at all representative of the top end of the industry…yet”

The first issue of Gentlewoman displays this with the most sought-after female photographers such as: Viviane Sassen, Zoё Ghertner, Alexandra Catiere and Liz Collins; amongst male photographers such as:  Wolfgang Tillmans, David Sims, Alasdair McLellan,  Willy Vanderperre, and some amazing new ones.

B.F – “What advice would you give to women who want to enter a publishing/photography career, especially when there are sometimes so few role models”?

P.M – “Gosh, I love being given advice, so let me think about the best piece ever given to me. A curator once told me that it’s crucial to establish your own peer group and not just look to the big names that are associated with previous projects and generations. And I think that’s right: if you find your own talent and are really thoughtful and ambitious about how you champion them, then you can be sure you are contributing to a new era”.

B.F -  “And finally, if you were a cake what would you be”?

P.M – “I guess it’s got to be a Black Bun or a Border Tart”.

The first issue of The Gentlewoman is now available at all good magazine stores. The preview copies twice sold out at premiere Parisian boutique Colette – definitely a promising excuse to buy a copy.