The Face

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For the Jack Vance novel, see The Face (Vance).

The Face was a magazine started in May 1980 by Nick Logan out of his publishing house Wagadon. Logan had previously created titles such as Smash Hits, and had been an editor at the New Musical Express in the 1970s during one of its most successful periods.

The magazine, often referred to as the "80s fashion bible", was influential in championing a number of fashion music and style trends, whilst keeping a finger on the pulse of youth culture for over two decades; its best selling period was in the mid-1990s under editor Richard Benson.

In the late 1980s, the magazine contained an article suggesting that Jason Donovan was gay and in consequence of the subsequent court case it needed the readers' donations to pay substantial libel damages. The magazine set up the Lemon Aid fund, so called as one of the points debated in the libel case was whether Jason Donovan used lemon juice on his hair to highlight it. In 1999, Wagadon was sold to the massive publishers EMAP.

Notable names associated with the magazine were designer & typographer Neville Brody (Art Director, 1981-86), Julie Burchill, Tony Parsons, photographer Juergen Teller and writer Jon Savage.

By its May 2004 closure, the format had become stale (arguably due to its mishandling by EMAP^{[citation needed]}), there were too many competitors, sales had declined and advertising revenues had consequently reduced. The publishers EMAP closed the title, in order to concentrate resources on its more successful magazines, however its fashion spin-off "POP" still survives as a stand alone magazine brand.

1 Trivia
2 Editors
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] Trivia

The magazine was referenced in Porcupine Tree's song "Shesmovedon" from the album Lightbulb Sun: "Your newest craze/Straight out of The Face/By the bed unread"

The Face is referenced in an episode of The Mighty Boosh, an English comedy programme. The two main characters, Howard Moon and Vince Noir are zoo keepers transporting a Russian bear to a different zoo. When the bear becomes bored (the show uses strong anthropormorphism) Vince offers it a magazine, to which Howard exclaims "The Face?! He's a Russian bear!".