Velour

Spirit & Flesh Magazine intends to show both sides of creativity – the glossy surface, and what lies beneath. We cover the masters, uncover new talent, and help to place them in historical context through freedom of expression, interviews, imagery, videos and more.

Spirit & Flesh online is a fast growing interactive platform and a destination with dynamic content created exclusively for Spirit & Flesh.

Deliciae Vitae: for men of the world In 1983, aged 18, I approached one of Europe’s leading publishers of adult material with my idea for a stylishly superior men’s publication. I knew there was a market for an international magazine that was classy, luxurious and sexy but which was fundamentally not about porn. I mean if that's all you want you can get it anywhere, right? They laughed me out of the building...

Another 18 years on, the culture of photography and publishing has come a very long way. Having worked as a fashion designer for much of the intervening period I've been struck how much fashion, and particularly fashion photographers have embraced sex and sexuality in advertising and editorial fashion shoots for men and women.

Ultimately, as the fashion industry knows very well, it's the image - the way someone (or something) is photographed - that makes them desirable. The medium - as they say - is the message. Which explains why certain fashion photographers have become as famous as film directors.

Deliciae Vitae is an independent bi-annual publication, of deliberate, unashamedly luxurious excess. Autonomous and unconstrained in a world of ever more increasing conglomerate fashion.

In this, its first issue, beautiful women from across the globe are photographed by the very best fashion and art photographers to give pleasure to the most sophisticated of palates. But such sophistication is indulged just as much by fine writing. So look out for features on the eternal sexual chemistry of champagne, the elitist joys of supersonic travel or the return of the ultimate pop playboy Bryan Ferry. Deliciae Vitae is not meant to appeal to everyone. But then, you're not everyone, are you?

WWD Magazines set the trends the world follows, engaging fashion, retail and beauty power players with compelling issues that offer the first look at what’s next in global fashion.

Town & Country, formerly the Home Journal and The National Press, is a monthly American lifestyle magazine. It is the oldest continually published general interest magazine in the United States.

Early history

It was founded by poet and essayist Nathaniel Parker Willis and New York Evening Mirror newspaper editor George Pope Morris, as The National Press in 1846. Eight months later, it was renamed The Home Journal. After 1901, the magazine title became "Town & Country" and it has retained that name ever since.

Throughout most of the 19th century, this weekly magazine featured poetry, essays, and fiction. As more influential people began reading it, the magazine began to include society news and gossip in its pages. After 1901, the magazine continued to chronicle the social events and leisure activities of the North American landed aristocracy such as debutante or cotillion balls, and also reported on the subsequent "advantageous marriages" that came from people meeting at such social engagements.

The magazine's earlier readership initially consisted of members of the Establishment. This includes older wealthy families of New York, Boston Brahmins or those people in other parts of the United States whose surnames may have appeared in the Social Register.

Willis owned and edited the magazine from 1846 until his death in 1867.

Modern history

After Willis's death, the magazine went through several owners and editors until William Randolph Hearst acquired ownership in 1925. The first editor under Hearst ownership was Harry Bull. He edited the magazine from 1925 through 1949. Henry B. Sell became Bull's successor.

The magazine is still owned and published by the Hearst Corporation.

Today, the magazine is published monthly, and its readership is composed of mainly younger socialites, café society, and middle class professionals.

Most of the advertising copy in the magazine is for luxury goods and services. The feature articles and photography focus primarily on fashion, arts, culture, interior design, travel, weddings, parties, gala events and other interests and concerns of the upper class.

In May 1993, Pamela Fiori became the first woman editor-in-chief of Town & Country magazine. During her tenure, Fiori has been credited with increasing circulation in several ways, including making the magazine more fashion forward and, in recent years, making philanthropy more of a priority for the magazine.

Fiori also has pushed for more diversity in the magazine's coverage. In an effort to play down the magazine's perceived snobbish and elitist WASP, or preppy image, more celebrities have been showing up on the magazine covers, and there has been an increase in the number of articles showcasing the events and weddings of socially prominent persons of African-American descent, as well as the social activities of people of other ethnicities.

Spin-off

In September 2003, a spin-off magazine entitled Town & Country Travel appeared. It is published quarterly. In September 2007, Town & Country Travel launched a travel website, townandcountrytravelmag.com; its staff travel blog can be found here. There is a special edition of the magazine focusing on wedding planning. In the past decade, several etiquette, wedding and lifestyle guidebooks have also published by the magazine. Among the most recent books published by the magazine is "Modern Manners: The Thinking Person's Guide to Social Graces," released in 2005 and edited by Town & Country senior editor Thomas Farley.