According to Joshua Glass, the idea for his new food, fashion, and culture magazine Family Style began with – what else? – a dinner party. “I used to organise these informal supper clubs at restaurants around New York City,†Glass remembers. “I’d pick, like, 10 friends and we’d all get together – there weren’t flowers, or anything fancy. At the very most, I would print off Walgreens Peel ’n’ Sticks as place cards. But it was a really nice way to bring people together, and it’s where I started collaborating with chefs.†In doing so, Glass – who previously worked as an editor at titles including Document Journal and CR Fashion Book – began to notice that putting together a magazine and organising a dinner party weren’t such different processes.
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“You’re thinking about who is best sitting next to who, and who complements each other across the group as a whole, and how to ensure there’s a diversity of conversation,†Glass notes. “We’ve all been to dinners where it’s only fashion people, and you’re just talking about the runway shows. How boring! The same goes for art and design. The whole idea of a dinner party is to have a mix. And I thought if a dinner party could be like editing a magazine, then a magazine could be like hosting a dinner party – and that’s really the idea of Family Style.â€
Given it sits at 162 pages and features cover stars including Chloë Sevigny and Michèle Lamy, however, Family Style feels less like a dinner party and more like a banquet – albeit one to which everyone is invited. The first thing that may strike you is the illustrious list of names that populate its masthead, from Downtown homewares guru Beverly Nguyen as the living editor, to veteran magazine editor Stefano Tonchi as a columnist, and the irreverent interiors whizz Harry Nuriev as the design editor. (And that’s without mentioning the long list of contributors to issue one who will be immediately familiar to fashion folk, among them writers Dan Thawley and Bridget Foley and photographers Venetia Scott and Ben Toms.) But the magazine deliberately straddles nearly every creative discipline: the first issue alone features artists, musicians, actors, directors, chefs, interior designers, activists, shopkeepers, and even scientists. What unites them all? An obsessive interest in the intersection between food and culture.
Equally important to Glass, however, was that its team structure felt less like a hierarchy and more like a community. (As fashion director Nathan Klein notes, citing the intention to bring “warmth and heart†to its pages, “Family Style lives up to its name.â€) “What everyone at Family Style really wants is to gather people,†Nguyen concurs. “It’s been this ideology since day one. It may be a fantasy dinner party, but the end results are real connections.†Yet the magazine’s inclusivity runs deeper, too. Arguably the most striking cover is a sculpture resembling fritters by Jade Guanaro Kuriki-Olivo, who discusses the challenges – and the joys – of being a trans artist with the musician Anohni later within the magazine’s pages; elsewhere, the global food cultures spotlighted span Haiti to Hong Kong. (New Jersey is represented, too, thanks to actor Michael Imperioli’s “not your Grandma’s meatballs†recipe on the final page.)
“I knew from the very beginning that our first issue had to be about our relationships with home,†says Glass of the magazine’s most meaningful moments. “The whole idea of Family Style is that we’re about warmth and community and people. I think every story touches on this idea that home is where we come from, but it’s also always changing.†Oh, and don’t worry – there’s plenty of fashion, too. A particular highlight (for this reader, anyway) is a reunion of former Style.com editors over brunch at Cheval Blanc in Paris, including Tim Blanks, Tommy Ton, Derek Blasberg, and Vogue’s very own Nicole Phelps. “Not everything has to last forever,†says the website’s former editor-in-chief, Dirk Standen. “Sometimes it’s okay to be a beautiful memory.â€
What Family Style seems to represent more broadly, after all, is the surprising ways in which the worlds of fashion and food have grown increasingly intertwined. “I remember my first season doing the European shows, and I was like: when do we eat?†Glass says. “Nobody stopped to eat at all!†(And this is without quite getting into the fashion industry’s long and problematic history of worshiping thinness, and the deeper ramifications of that for those who work within it.)
These days, however, you can hardly turn your head without a brand announcing a new gastronomic enterprise. (A Prada pastry shop! A Chanel retro diner! A Burberry greasy spoon café!) Meanwhile, dinners have overtaken parties and store events as the marketing tool du jour, now that brands recognise that a deeper bond is forged when you host something with a sociable and laid-back feel. These days, on any given night in London or New York, there are likely to be half a dozen brand-sponsored dinners at restaurants around the city, packed with editors and influencers looking for a hearty meal (and possibly some industry gossip). “I think because of the pandemic, and the rise of a lot of cross-categorical artists who use food as a means of expressing themselves, fashion has embraced the world of food,†adds Glass. “If you look at how luxury brands are interacting with their clients now, it’s all about things that are intimate and curated, and there’s no better way to foster that feeling than with food.â€
It’s perhaps unsurprising, then, that the intention is for Family Style to be a moveable feast as well as a magazine, with Glass already plotting a series of dinner parties to celebrate the first issue and continue growing their community. “Everyone working on the magazine is a friend,†says Glass. “The whole idea of Family Style, really, is about how food not only brings people together, but prompts conversations that are bigger than just ‘What did you do today?’†Now, as the first issue hits newsstands, those conversations are about to begin.
Family Style’s first issue (£12) is available to buy at family.style.
