Frances von Hofmannsthal and Thomas Persson founded LUNCHEON in 2015 with a premise so simple it bordered on the conceptual: what if a magazine were structured like a meal? Not a food magazine — the distinction matters — but a cultural publication organized around the rituals of the lunch table, where conversations wander, generations collide, and the best ideas emerge somewhere between the hors d'oeuvres and the digestif.
Von Hofmannsthal, who serves as editor-in-chief, brings a sensibility shaped by the intersection of fashion, photography, and literary culture. Persson, as creative director, had previously art-directed L'Uomo Vogue and brought a visual ambition that is evident on every one of the magazine's oversized pages. Together with art directors Giulia Garbin and Mariana Sameiro, publisher Adam Saletti, and fashion editor-at-lunch Marie Chaix, they assembled a team whose combined experience spans the upper reaches of European fashion and art publishing.
Each biannual issue is divided into courses. The aperitifs section features advertising from restaurants and cafés, curated by longtime collaborator Margot Henderson, the chef and co-founder of Rochelle Canteen. The hors d'oeuvres bring short features and profiles. The main courses are extended conversations and visual portfolios. The digestifs close the issue with something lingering. Contributors have included Snowdon, Paolo Roversi, Wes Anderson, Suzy Menkes, and the late Tomi Ungerer, whose children's book illustrations were used to define the sections of one issue. The magazine arrives with multiple cover options — sometimes a fashion image by Nadine Ijewere, sometimes a vintage coffee pot by Paola Reversi, sometimes an illustration — each expressing a different facet of the issue's contents.
Printed in Italy on Fedrigoni paper, LUNCHEON reads more like a coffee-table book than a conventional magazine. Fifteen issues in, it has established itself as one of the most visually generous and editorially unpredictable publications in independent fashion media. A single issue might combine Judy Blame, Bobby Baker, and Tin Gao without feeling the need to explain how they relate. The connection, as in any good lunch conversation, is trust — trust that the person across the table has something worth saying, and that the meal will last long enough for the best stories to emerge.
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