The Printed Matter Experience.
MagCulture X Selfridges
Following on from my previous post, Less virtual, more tactile, we are seeing a renewed influx of books and magazines being elevated into experiences.
Books and magazines are serving as a much-needed antidote to digital content and entertainment burnout, and perhaps to boredom too. There is a renewed appetite for the tactile, the held, the finite. In a culture defined by infinite scroll, printed matter offers something else entirely: boundaries.
We are seeing this shift in how fashion brands are re-engaging with physical experience. At Jil Sander’s “Reference Library”, created in collaboration with Apartamento Magazine during Milan Design Week, 60 creatives selected books that were then displayed on podiums. Elevated like artefacts. Treated as precious objects.
“We live in an era of distracted, fragmented reading shaped by algorithms. Against this backdrop, the book stands as something worth defending, a physical object that demands slow, full attention.” — Jil Sander
Similarly, Miu Miu’s “Summer Reads” pop-up offered an accessible way to interact with the brand. Copies of books by Jane Austen, Alba de Céspedes and Sibilla Aleramo were given away, alongside ice creams served from a kiosk.
“Furthering Miu Miu’s commitment to contemporary thought and culture, books are the protagonists of Summer Reads, a series of special initiatives taking place in selected cities worldwide.” — Miu Miu
I regularly visit MagCulture in Islington, but I was particularly interested to see their pop-up in Selfridges. What happens when intimate curation meets a large-scale retail environment?
Entering through the Duke Street entrance and stepping directly into the space, there was an immediate shift. High ceilings, movement, energy, but within it a contained world. It felt like luxury. Not in the traditional sense, but in attention. A magazine space that sat somewhere between an art exhibition and an elevated retail experience.
There are people who might not know about MagCulture or travel to the Islington store. Here, they encounter it by chance. This is the power of concession and collaboration. An intelligent way for independent culture to reach new audiences without diluting itself.
This is something I speak about in my lectures at Vogue College of Fashion: the idea of “the concept within the concept”, a store within a store. When done well, collaboration becomes one of the most effective forms of marketing. Not just for reach, but for depth.
While browsing, a sales assistant offered me a small pack of postcards. It took me straight back to when visiting a store meant leaving with something small, something physical, something to keep. A fragment for a sketchbook. A memory you could hold. The experience itself was calm, attentive, and unforced. Present, but not pushy.
I love editorial. Quirky reads, abstract points of view, the interplay of image and language. Thoughtful typography. Design that carries meaning. It is a form of storytelling that does not need to explain itself fully to be understood.
Growing up, printed matter was everywhere. My mother was part of a bookshop collective, Mushroom Bookshop in Nottingham, often described as “radical”. My stepfather was an abstract minimalist artist whose medium was wood and paper. Our home was filled with books and his sculptures hung on the walls like paintings.
It was not conventional. Compared to friends’ homes, it felt different. There was judgement, even a sense of not quite fitting in. But underneath that, there was something else. An awareness that there was depth there. Thought. Care. A different way of seeing.
My father, a graphic designer, also worked outside of rules. He designed book and album covers, including A Bell Is a Cup by Wire. He always kept a collection of cut-out images and while searching through them for this cover design, he found an image of a filing cabinet and a horse’s head. His logic was simple: if a bell can be a cup, then a horse can be a filing cabinet.
Between them, I was surrounded by people who thought differently, created freely, and lived without fitting neatly into boxes. There was never much chance of being ‘normal’ for me.
Thank Goodness.
The Creative Framework:
Attention → Boundaries → Possibility.
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'not just for reach but for depth' beautiful