When you go to your happy place, where do you go? A meadow? A tropical island? A pile of pancakes covered in syrup with blueberries and sprinkles and a side of cake drizzled in caramel with with a blue heaven milkshake and a crinkle cut fries chaser served to you on a bed of ice cream while reclining in the whole Miu Miu Fall 2015 collection?
If you answered the latter, your sticky fingered, fashion lover dreams have come true with FFFzine. The new publication combines two of the planet’s greatest resources-food and fashion-into one delicious limited edition morsel. Created as a response to the picture perfect world of Instagram food photography, it’s a chaotic and colourful delight.
With their first edition including works and words from Maisie Williams, Richard Kern, Luis Venegas, Charli XCX, John Waters, and Twiggy, we’re not sure who is left to feature in issue two. Not that we’re complaining.
i-D spoke to the creators Zac Bayly and Stacia Hadiutomo about delicious things.
How long have you been working on FFFZINE?
Zac: We put it together in our spare time over the course of about a year. We both had freelance work on and day jobs, so it was really when ever we had a moment or an idea.
Why make a zine?
Zac: It’s super fun! Plus, there were so many people that we were excited by the idea of working with, so it was a way for us to do that.
Stacia: FFF is a way for us to work creatively without being restricted by the needs of a client. It didn’t ever feel like work when we were putting this issue together because we were totally free to do what we wanted.
There are a lot of zines out and about at the moment, how did you set about making yours different?
Zac: We wanted to make something that was a bit chaotic and messy and colourful. We just had fun with it. I guess we were responding to that phenomenon of people Instagramming super-tasteful pictures of their meals. Yuck! Good taste has no place in the kitchen. And no place in FFF either.
Stacia: A lot of people started to do similar projects that were all about the aesthetics of meal time. Most of them are very serious. I don’t think food should be taken too seriously. Our zine is about playing with your food, good easy delicious ugly food!
When people speak about food and fashion together, it’s often in contentious ways. But in FFF it was kind of refreshing to see them married in such a positive light. How did that come about?
Zac: I don’t think our zine should be taken too seriously; it’s a silly fun thing. I think both Stacia and I believe that food and clothes are things to enjoy and experiment with, and so the issue hopefully wound up feeling celebratory and inclusive (even if it is quite bonkers).
Stacia: We wanted to remind people that food should be fun. Even though most of our contributors are from a fashion background they were super excited to talk about food. For example, we talked to Twiggy about the joy of cooking and making food for your loved ones. We went to Richard Nicoll’s studio where his pattern maker Bella baked us a cake! Tony Ward told us that his favourite snack when he was a kid was peanut butter, tomato, and mayonnaise sandwich. Yum!
What’s your all time favourite food x fashion moment?
Zac: Anytime food doesn’t meet fashion, as in doesn’t stain our shirts.
Stacia: Our Why Don’t You column inspired by Diana Vreeland’s column of the same name.
Your Instagram has already got a lot of love, where do you find all those amazing images?
Zac: Stacia is responsible for our Instagram. I think she has a sixth and possibly even a seventh sense for finding instances where food and fashion collide in images on the internet.
Actually, you’ve opened an old wound here, because early on I was banned from FFF’s instagram for posting my own super-unappealing meal photos. Apparently a group of my friends had a group iMessage conversation about it and the decision was made to change the account password. It was a coupe!
Stacia: Yeah, I slowly deleted his posts so that I didn’t hurt his feelings. It’s bad when Zac gets too excited about these things, you know. When he uploaded a blurry picture of feet while he was out one night I decided to ban him forever.
Okay, a less sensitive subject. The lineup for the first issue is impressive for any publication-let alone the first edition of a zine, how did you get so many great people involved?
Zac: We just emailed people – friends, strangers, everyone! And when we met people, we asked them. Twiggy I saw backstage at a show in London and it turned out she was only too happy to riff about meal times. Everyone loves food, and everyone has a favourite restaurant, so I think people were happy to be involved. And we let people contribute whatever seemed fun to them, whether it was a recommendation in the form of a quote or a photo, or a recipe, or a postcard, or a whole image series. I mean, a lot of it was directed by us, but we gave people a lot of room to wriggle.
Tell us about having Maisie on the cover.
Zac: Our cover photographer Michael Hauptman is a huge Game of Thrones fan. When her name came up he was like, “YES!” Maisie and her mom Hilary were so great on the day. We loved them!
Credits
Words Wendy Syfret
Photography FFFZine