When he launched the small-format 32-page song sheet The Melody Maker in 1926, Tin Pan Alley music publisher Lawrence Wright sparked the media revolution that created the music press.

This multi-million pound business eventually straddled the Atlantic and simultaneously proved a fertile breeding ground for generations of writers, photographers, film-makers and performers who made their mark in the wider world.

Everyone from Bob Geldof, Chrissie Hynde and Neil Tennant to Danny Baker, Caroline Coon, Julie Burchill, Barbara Ellen, Caitlin Moran, Miranda Sawyer and movie directors Cameron Crowe and Anton Corbijn (and even Michael Winner) cut their teeth on music magazines such as Melody Maker, New Musical Express, Rolling Stone, ZigZag and Smash Hits.

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Tags: Alan Lewis, Andy Warhol, Anton Corbijn, Antonella Gambotto-Burke, Barbara Ellen, Bob Geldof, Caitlin Moran, Cameron Crowe, Carl Gayle, Caroline Coon, Chelsea Clinton, Chrissie Hynde, Corinne Day, Danny Baker, Darby Romeo, David Salzman, Erica Smith, Grace Jones, Harry Styles, Jann Wenner, Jason Donovan, Julie Burchill, Kate Moss, Kerin Morayata, Lawrence Wright, Mat Snow, Max Jones, Micahel Winner, Miranda Sawyer, Neil Tennant, neville Brody, NIck Cave, Quincy Jones, Roisin Murphy, Stevie Wonder, Time Inc, Truman Capote, Tupac SHakur

//Opening spread of my interview with Peter York, Arena Homme + Winter/Spring 2020. Portrait: David Sims//

//From the Them fashion story. Photography: Julien Martinez Leclerc; fashion: Tom Guinness//

The jury is out on this autumn’s relaunch of the print edition of venerated British style magazine The Face; as I suggested here it’s going to take more than one splashy issue to assess whether the proposition has legs as we enter the 2020s (next May will mark the 40th anniversary of the founding of The Face by Nick Logan).

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Tags: Arena Homme +, Ashley Heath, Berluti, Bottega Veneta, Brockhampton, David Sims, Fantastic Man, George MacKay, Gert Jonkers, Harpers & Queen, Joe Cole, Jop van Bennekom, Julien Martinez Leclerc, Kris Van Assche, Lawrence, Mark Leckey, neville Brody, New Order, Nick Logan, Peter York, Prada, Rex Orange County, Stephen Morris, The Face, Tom Guinness

This is the front of the jacket of my new book The Story Of The Face: The Magazine That Changed Culture, which is published by Thames & Hudson this autumn.

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Tags: Buffalo, Corinne Day, Dylan Jones, Felix Howard, GQ, Jamie Morgan, Kate Moss, Melanie Ward, neville Brody, Phil Bicker, Thames & Hudson, Therese Vandling

The industrious British designer/illustrator Kate Moross is celebrating the publication of her book Make Your Own Luck with a London exhibition surveying the impressive body of work she has assembled to date.

I recommend the book highly, and not just because Moross gracefully thanked me for what little input I may have had. Also, as a fellow dog-lover, it’s great to see that Moross’s beloved Shiba Inus Tako and Ebi are given prominence on the flyleaf.

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Tags: Camden, Cob Gallery, heartsrevolution, Kate Moross, Make Your Own Luck, neville Brody

//Selection of poster prints Graham Wood made for Magick Is Freedom! (After Barney Bubbles)//

Best known as one of the founders of British design collective Tomato, Graham Wood chose a 1968 poster for underground magazine Oz as the wellspring for a series of 24 poster prints.

I corresponded with Wood about the ways in which the original artwork- made by Barney Bubbles and his 60s design partner David Wills with a team of contributors – sparked inspiration for the two dozen A0-size posters, which were exhibited in Stockholm in November 2012.

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Tags: David Wills, Do It Yourself, Existence Is Unhappiness, Graham Wood, Hawkwind, In Search Of Space, malcolm Garrett, My Aim Is True, neville Brody, New Boots & Panties!!, Oz, Peter Saville, Scarlett Gallery, Tomato, Vaughan Oliver

Grace Jones maternity dress 1979 © Jean-Paul Goude.

Here is a selection of images from the V&A’s forthcoming exhibition Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970-1990. In pursuit of this slippery-to-define movement, curators Glenn Adamson and Jane Pavitt have settled on the defining principles of quotation and bricolage (assemblage from diverse elements).

As a result they have mixed and matched disciplines, categories and scale in their line-up of 250 exhibits, ranging from a reconstruction of Hans Hollein’s 1980 Venice Biennale facade The Presence Of The Past to graphics for record sleeves by Barney Bubbles, Neville Brody and Peter Saville.

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Tags: Andy Warhol, Charles Jencks, Cindy Sherman, Derek Jarman, Glenn Adamson, Grace Jones, Hans Hollein, Helmut Newton, Jane Pavitt, Jeff Koons, Jenny Holzer, Laurie Anderson, neville Brody, New Order, Peter Saville, Philip Johnson, Ray Petri, Richard Prince, Robert Rauschenberg, Ron Arad, s David Byrne, Talking Heads, The Face, V&A