Jacques Magazine

Jonathan Leder, in addition to being a fantastic photographer, is the mastermind behind a beautifully produced magazine focusing on eroticism. “Jacques” marks the emergence of a new generation of publications borrowing from more old-school and authentic imagery and concepts. With a little bit of scholarly care you can trace influences that will take you beyond such obvious candidates as Playboy and Hustler and into such esoteric company as seventies or eighties issues of Zoom, LUI, sixties glamour models, David Hamilton, Carlo Mollino polaroids, pinups and vintage cars. The main achievement of Jacques magazine is that it has no connections to enduring current titles in our culture but still manages to be intriguing, impressive and successful. It also helps that everything seems to be shot on film and that all the imagery reflects a quaint fondness for the poetic and soft focus. The quarterly publication is clearly in revolt against the lack of refined adult magazines and their homogeneity. Forget the glossy idealized fantasy, the awful dreary uniformity, hyper-real plastic physicality, a world of artifice and welcome the vision of beautiful un-retouched natural women, sufficiently humane and familiar, a flashback to a golden past. Jacques is like a jolly production, a curiosity you collect and cherish. It’s a wonderfully concocted and small exploration of the sixties and seventies culture of eroticism without the clichés.