Myles Claffey is so highminded about his magazine, Homage, he doesn't want it cheapened by 'badly designed adverts'. The man who wants to take the gloss off Irish fashion talks to Eoin Lyons

You may have seen it on sale in hip record shops, clothing outlets and bookstores. Homage, a new Irish magazine covering fashion, music, film and the arts, looks very, very different from any other magazine ever produced here. Who is it in homage to? To its producer, Myles Claffey, and the fact that he has come up with the funds to pay for it and got a few cool friends to contribute? Or is it truly experimental, in the tradition of such British magazines as The Face or i-D?

Claffey, a 27-year-old photographer and film maker, says Homage "is about legitimising creativity that is unheard, misunderstood and unappreciated. There are many people producing extraordinary work who don't receive very much attention".

The list of contributors is certainly interestingly leftfield. Among them is designer Antonia Campbell Hughes, writing on fashion, No Disco presenter, Leagues O'Toole, writing on music, and an eclectic group of well-known photographers, such as John Reck and Gordon Goodwin. Today FM D.J. Donal Dineen is also involved as music editor.

The new issue is smaller than the standard A4 size, a format usually associated with fanzines. Its high production values indicate that it is aiming to be something more, however. But it is hard not to wonder if, like many niche publications, it will survive beyond a handful of issues.

Ultimately, this will depend on the quality of the content, vibrancy of the visuals and whether it can attract the advertising to support it all. Claffey believes that it will survive. He feels there is a market for Homage because, in Ireland,"nobody is pushing the envelope in terms of design, content or photography.

"A magazine should be like a thriller film with an element of surprise," says Claffey. "The reader shouldn't know what is on the next page. Each issue will have a different format and there will be no rigid design template".

Like David Bowie, whose lyrics were used to link the fashion stories in the last issue, Homage intends to constantly re-invent itself.

SO what is there in the magazine to back up these claims? The magazine is split in two: fashion images are in one half, and the reader must flip the magazine over and read from the back cover to access the articles. While graphic designer Gareth Jones experiments with typeface and images to link the two sides together. "We want to report what's going on outside the mainstream, both here and abroad, so there are articles on cult American fashion label 'Imitation of Christ' and photographer David Farrell's work during the Troubles in Northern Ireland," says Claffey.

Other photographic content ranges from rough, snapshot-style fashion images, to portraits of Indian children. Attention is also drawn to homegrown music, ranging from the gentle sounds of Paul O'Reilly, to the intensity of a club night in Bass Bin.

The hunger for niche style and culture magazines is an international phenomenon. Developed at first as a reaction to the mainstream, magazines such as Egoiste in France and Visionaire in the US now play a major role in determining the fashion status quo - which designer, model or photographer is hot - but such magazines' power is in terms of influence rather than sales.

NEVERTHELESS, the international mainstream fashion press has been forced to sit up and take notice of the style and attitude of these magazines. Myles Claffey hopes the same will happen in this country. "There is a sophisticated young audience who aren't being catered for. They're reading the international style and culture magazines and want Irish creativity to have a similar outlet," says Claffey.

"There is no magazine culture in Ireland, no history of experimentation. The British magazine, i-D, was always trying new things in the early 1980s, from layout to fashion imagery. The American magazine, Harper's Bazaar, in the 1940s was art directed by Alexi Brodovich and was radical in the way they used typography and photography. There has never been anything like that here."

It has to be said, however, that Homage is far less constrained by market pressures than most other Irish publications. It doesn't have to appeal to a wide audience, and can "take risks and act as an experimental laboratory".

But will more advertisers warm to Homage? Claffey's view is that he would rather have a smaller magazine than one full of badly designed adverts. "I never want to cheapen the magazine in that way," he says.

The real challenge will be whether this high-mindedness can be reconciled with producing a magazine that can survive. Homage will need some serious backing if it is to continue to cultivate the artistic underground. If it doesn't endure, however, at least it will go down as a brave experiment.

Homage magazine costs €3. It is available at Easons nationwide and in Dublin at shops including Costume, Castle Market; Cuan Hanly, Temple Bar, and The Design Centre, Powerscourt Townhouse Centre