10 Magazine Issue 77, themed FUTURE, LEGACY, HERITAGE, arrives on newsstands on 18 September, and editor Sophia Neophitou-Apostolou has used her letter to make the case that heritage is not nostalgia but fuel.
The issue opens with a Chanel AW26 cover, shot in Paris by Alex Huanfa Cheng, styled by Toby Grimditch, and fronted by Aditsa Berzenia, the Matthieu Blazy muse whose presence here feels entirely deliberate. A second cover features 10 Magazine‘s Lilith Khrapach, suited in Givenchy tailoring by Sarah Burton, a pairing that speaks directly to the issue’s preoccupation with what a house’s codes can become in different hands.
The Editor on Archive, Instinct and Buying Well
Neophitou-Apostolou writes with the authority of someone who has not merely observed this conversation but lived it through her wardrobe. Her archive includes John Galliano pieces from his Princess Lucretia SS94 collection: a bias-cut gown in mink with a matching jacket she wore as a maiden of honour, and a wide-leg navy bias-cut trouser suit from the same collection. There is also what she describes as ‘the fabled carnation dress, in all black, rather than the black and white catwalk version, from AW95’, worn to receive her Outstanding Achievement award at The Fashion Awards, almost two decades after she bought it.
The philosophy behind the collection is straightforward: ‘I am a real believer in buying once and buying well.’ She gravitates, she writes, towards pieces she will appreciate for years, where desirability is ‘perpetual’ rather than ‘fleeting.’ The heritage of a piece, in her view, is what gives a brand its longevity.
The wardrobe she describes reads like a survey of a particular era of rigorous fashion. Eight Phoebe Philo for Céline coats (in leather-sleeved, camel wool, grey, blue and cream iterations) sit alongside tailored jackets from the same tenure. Nicolas Ghesquière’s work for Balenciaga is there, as are pieces from his time at Callaghan. There are Martin-era Margiela suits, McQueen, Alber Elbaz for Lanvin, Roland Mouret (she worked with him for 20 years and has several Galaxy dresses), Antonio Berardi, Helmut Lang and Body Map. Azzedine Alaïa runs as a thread through it all.
The Archives Behind the Issue
The editorial ambition of 10 Magazine Issue 77 extends well beyond the editor’s own collection. Claudia Croft visited five luxury houses to document how brands archive their own histories, and the results are detailed here with real specificity. The Dior archive occupies a temperature-controlled space in central Paris, every piece stored in grey boxes wrapped in tissue. Gucci’s archive lives in a 14th-century building in Florence, held in glass vitrines that Neophitou-Apostolou describes as glowing with golden light, Tom Ford’s legendary collections alongside Demna’s new Gucci chapter.
The archive that moves her most is the one assembled by Carla Sozzani after the death of Azzedine Alaïa: housed in the catacombs beneath the Fondation Azzedine Alaïa on Rue du Moussy, it holds not only Alaïa’s own work but pieces he collected over the years by Madame Grès, Christian Dior, Balenciaga and others. Neophitou-Apostolou calls it ‘a temple of beauty and inspiration.’ It is used, she explains, to create exhibitions that open this treasured archive more widely.
BryanBoy also appears in the issue, his wardrobe examined for past and present buys. There is, as one might expect, a great deal of Prada, Dior and Chanel.
The Harlem-themed editorial, meanwhile, features Ajah Angau in Louis Vuitton, a cover story covered by 10 Magazine that extends the issue’s argument about heritage into something geographic and cultural as much as sartorial. The word heritage, in this context, is doing considerable work.
What the issue argues, collectively, is that the best fashion houses are not replicating their past but distilling it: identifying the core ingredients precisely, then using them to move forward. Neophitou-Apostolou puts it plainly: ‘It is fuel to grow and modernise their collections, always moving forward, as fashion should.’ 10 Magazine Issue 77 is on newsstands 18 September.
