Post-Suede (Mag) Silver Lining

STAYING TOGETHER: The sad story of Suede magazine now has a happy postscript.
WWD.com

Many of the designers, photographers and stylists who gave the short-lived urban fashion magazine its distinctive look stuck together after its demise in February, and now they've started a creative agency called Chandelier. Richard Christiansen, the agency's creative director and the group's nucleus, said the name was a term coined during the Suede days to describe a particularly lavish layout. "Chandelier was the total embodiment of decadence — over-the-top, completely outrageous layers of design," he said.

Chandelier's charter clients include Baby Phat, Iceberg and a custom magazine that Christiansen declined to name. "We really want to focus on accounts that love color and pattern and over-the-top design," he said. "There's not many people who are that brave out there."

But the birth of Chandelier is not without its own soupçon of drama. Manhattanites in the media and advertising industries received news of the launch in the form of an oversized brochure that arrived on their desks Thursday. The brochure was filled with examples of Christiansen's team's work, including page after page of images created for Suede. Unfortunately, the copy — "When a fashion magazine closes its doors, what happens to all the great people? They start an agency." — was taken as a snub by some former Suede staffers, who saw it as an attempt by the Chandelier crowd to take credit for all the good parts of the magazine. Christiansen said that was not his intention, and that the wording would be changed: "The press kit was not designed to deflect anyone of credit or recognition."
— J.B.