Visitors to the gallery were startled to discover the Stylist team creating a magazine against a backdrop of South Korean art. As well as being asked to join in public features and news brainstorms and design their own Stylist covers, passing art lovers could watch beautiful fashion stories taking place, the whole team posing for possible cover ideas and beauty shoots recreating the works of Jackson Pollock and Damien Hirst. As one visitor succinctly put it, “You’re making me rethink what constitutes art.”
But it wasn’t just Saatchi Gallery patrons who got involved with this very special issue. Tracey Emin wrote an exclusive piece on her art school years, we interviewed the ground-breaking Turner Prize-winner Gillian Wearing and, in a jaw-dropping coup, covered the elusive mogul of the art world, Charles Saatchi in paint. Why? Thanks to a private (and rather endearing) battle with his wife Nigella Lawson. She appeared on Stylist’s cover in December last year - salted caramel drizzling down her face - and the idea of ‘one-upping’ Nigella genuinely delighted Saatchi. Nigella will only find out about the shoot when she reads the issue (distributed on 29 August), says Stylist.
And to complement the art issue’s cover (featuring two members of the team echoing artworks on display in the Saatchi Gallery), Stylist has created an extremely limited edition run of the Charles Saatchi cover – as illustrated above – making the magazine itself a collector’s work.
As Stylist editor Lisa Smosarski explains, “This was a world-first in magazines. No other team has ever turned themselves into an art exhibit. We were genuinely challenged and inspired by working in such a public environment. Did we become art? Read the issue and let us know.”
