EDITOR’S LETTER

What is real? Do we live in a simulation? Do aliens exist? According to Spielberg’s latest film (out this month — Disclosure Day), yes, kind of. But that’s not the point of this editorial.

The point is: this magazine isn’t real. Well — you’re holding it, so technically it is. But nothing inside it is. It’s a demo. A pitch deck in glossy paper clothing. A very fancy one, but still — a concept on display.
The brand names? Invented. You probably had a hunch. The ads? Mostly affectionate copycats of real ones. The clothes? Stunning, occasionally — but no, you can’t buy them. Even if you wanted to. The circulation is exactly ten copies, all going to people I’d like to work with. Including, perhaps, you.

In the real magazine — the one your shopping centre could actually have — everything would be real. Real brands, real products, real journalism. Well, real to the extent that anything is real in a universe that, according to the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics, isn’t locally real. The double-slit experiment suggests reality only renders when someone’s watching.

You’re watching right now. So thank you — you’re making this magazine real. The bottom line is that it exists. But it doesn’t think, though… therefore… it doesn’t exist?! Hmm. Maybe it’s not working the other way around… It’s confusing… I’m starting to doubt the life lessons taken from Billie Eilish’s lyrics… Or Decartes’… not his song lyrics, you know what I mean…

Anyway — I hope you like it. Give me a call.

Cheers.