As a young kid, I bought magazines weekly, starting with Look-in, a preteen music and television magazine, followed by the brightly coloured teen bible Smash Hits and then the Face, the last two founded by Nick Logan.
When I was 16 and had left school, the Face opened a window into London’s arts, music, clubbing, queer and fashion scene, which took me out of my small world in south London and allowed me to aspire to something different.
The Face was like a cool, older teenager who invited you into a sexy new world where fashion, music and design fused to create a revolutionary culture.
This truly was the heyday of magazines, as I was reminded when visiting The Face Magazine: Culture Shift at the National Portrait Gallery last week.
Beyond the capital’s walls, the magazine introduced me to the emerging house music scene in Chicago and New York, and foreign-language films.
