How did a young Dubliner become creative head of an exclusive global art magazine? Ruth O'Connor reports
'It all started when I saw a bundle of enormous fashion magazines on the pavement, and my friend said: 'Why don't you go intern for them?' " says Aoife Wasser. Four years on, the 29-year-old Dubliner is art director of Visionaire, one of the world's most progressive fashion publishers, whose Visionaire, V and V Man magazines showcase contemporary art and design. "It's quite amazing," says Wasser from Palmerstown, in west Dublin, on a visit home from New York. "Half the time you don't even realise how lucky you are to be working with these people."
Visionaire and its stablemates blur the lines between art and fashion, using work by top photographers, graphic designers and other artists. Mario Testino, Karl Lagerfeld and David Sims are regular contributors. Only 3,000 or so copies of each Visionaire are printed, and the magazine, which takes a different theme for each quarterly issue, is increasingly collectable. Issues 1-48 sold at Sotheby's in May for a whopping €25,000. "If you're into collecting art, Visionaire is a really good deal, because each one is a limited-edition piece of the best of contemporary artwork."
The most recent edition of Visionaire takes magic as its theme. Produced in conjunction with the jeweller Van Cleef & Arpels, it features work by Lagerfeld, Pedro Almodóvar, Sofia Coppola and Spike Jonze, among others.
The previous issue, on taste, included 12 "taste films", or small gelatin-like sheets flavoured to evoke concepts such as guilt (leather and chocolate, created by the experimental British chef Heston Blumenthal), "Mommy" (condensed milk, by Yoko Ono), adrenalin (jet fuel and metal, by Jenny Holzer) and "feast" (egg and chips, by Sims).
A couple of years ago, an issue on scent saw people as diverse as Stephen King and Kate Moss collaborate with perfumers to produce vials of scent - called, in King's and Moss's cases, Fear and Mother. They were just two of the 21 perfumes that came with the magazine.
That kind of innovation doesn't come cheap. A year's subscription costs $800 (€620), and some back issues sell for $1,000 (€775) on Visionaire's website; the current issue, on magic, which includes a gold charm, is $700 (€545). That might seem outrageous for a magazine, but, says Wasser, "magazine" is not really the right word. "Visionaire is expensive mainly because of the production that goes into it. It is limited edition, and the format changes each time. With the Testino edition we used his unseen photos, and the artwork was hand-stitched, hand-cut and printed onto latex. We pride ourselves on being the first to try new techniques."
If you can't see yourself forking out $175 for each issue of Visionaire, a subscription to V is a more modest £63 (€93) for six issues. "If Visionaire is a couture book," says Wasser, "V is ready-to-wear."
Perhaps not many of us could handle the stress and excitement of it all, but Wasser seems unfazed. "You never get star-struck," she says. "I think that's the Irish in us: we're not all that concerned with that type of thing. But to get art direction from the likes of Testino is pretty amazing. It's only when you get home at night that you think: 'I probably wouldn't be doing this at home in Ireland.' "
In New York, as well as working for Visionaire's three magazines, Wasser works on advertising for fashion houses such as Fendi, Chanel and Dior. "When you look at fashion advertisements for those big companies, chances are we came up with the idea and decided where to place the logo and how to market the product."
An average day is a busy one. "I might pour myself a coffee at 9.30am and take the first sip of it at noon," she says, laughing. "It's certainly a fairly hectic schedule." Mornings are devoted to upcoming projects. "V is okay, because there's a format, but Visionaire is much more challenging, because there is no format; my boss will just come in with ideas and we will go with them. After the 9/11 attacks he came in and said, 'I'm feeling that there's not enough love in the world,' so we went with his gut, and we did a love issue."
She works to strict deadlines with a team of three graphic designers for V and brainstorms on Visionaire in the afternoon, as well as researching ad campaigns. She often works until 10pm.
Even so, her enthusiasm hasn't dwindled after four years. "I still get excited when my first numbered copy arrives from the printers," she says. "And if I'm working on an ad campaign and I say I want a packet of Tayto, it's crazy, but someone will run out and get it for me."
Visionaire's website is www.visionaireworld.com. See also www.vmagazine.com and www.vman.com