Welcome to our August annual age issue where our editors, photographers and models first and foremost show you how empowering and fantastic it is to remain cool, sexy, smart when you get a bit older year after year. It´s not that we´re showing you something new lol but it is notable to have magazines dedicate year after year an issue about what it is to be an older man in a youth-driven society where when one passes the age of 30 they are considered older citizens lol what a crazy world we are livin´ y´all. Therefore, an underlying message that runs throughout all this issue for August has always been and will always be about age. How does one learn how to age gracefully? Is there such a thing as ageing with poise and wisdom anyways or is it just a pop-cultural `thing´ that magazines and television want us to think since they keep repeating it over and over again? There is more and more chatter in these past few years to celebrate in Fashion many different profiles than your normal size 0 or size 2 kind of model, especially in the women’s department. Currently we´re surrounded with fashion images that show other races, other types of bodies, other types of beauty. Is this just a phase for our very conscientious way of living in the 21st century or have we all, as a common society, decided it´s finally time to accept everybody and not being that blind to only accept, showcase and celebrate one western-ish beauty standard? I guess more than at almost any other stage in my memory have we been so welcoming within the Fashion industry. Whether it's about the musical chairs of leading designers and the hirings and firings in the major houses or the fashion-show calendar changing drastically or even the powerful impact of digital technologies and influencers or the debate about when clothes should be delivered to the stores for us as customers. It is clear to me that the whole pattern of contemporary fashion is under a big microscope and when someone messes up, they are directly called for inspection: weird fashion photographers who abused models, bad magazine editors who used money for their own expense and so on. There are many questions and, so far, very few answers, but what is clear is that there is much to be examined and these days the young generation is taking the helms of their future. Our Fashion shoots are always about how, when clothes are styled, they can definitely transform a man and make him feel better, hotter, and more powerful. I love that, in our own way we, as a magazine, take part in a makeover type of process where we can take a young man, usually models, and with the magic or hair, makeup, smart styling, we then can give this man a new identity somehow, to make him look at himself with a new pair of eyes. A good outfit also usually have that power. And as a magazine that defines itself as a kind of bridge between the fashion houses and the customer, the ability for us to take time to create the stories that are part of forging the desirability of the clothes on the runway is absolutely vital. And honestly to me, it´s not about the clothes actually it´s more about the vision of that designer and how we can interpret it in our own way for the purpose of the shoots. Age will always be something to value and to love: the older you get the smarter you become.
