Phillip Picardi, 26 years old, is the editor for Teen vogue and the reason behind a true feminist revolution within the magazine. He arrived there as a 25 year old, after being senior beauty editor in a medium dedicated to the modern woman which follows an informative format; Refinery29.
He started working in Condé Nast, the editorial that publishes magazines since 1907 in New York, ever since his first year as a freshman at college. He arrived two years ago to direct Teen Vogue giving it a regenerative turn, an evolution that brought a brand new audience of youngsters interested in fashion, politics and contemporary culture, after publishing a Lauren Duca essay, a day after election day in the United States.
During January of the present year, Picardi became the Content Chief for Teen Vogue accepting new responsibilities, and amongst them the challenge to direct a new project which potentiates lesbian, gay, trans, bisexual, gender non-conforming and all grey areas in sexuality discourses: them.
Them is an English neutral prefix which is used not to exclude those people that do not identify with a gender binary system.
Talking with POUSTA, Picardi said that his interest with Them is to create a platform for the next generation created for and by the queer community.
It’s no coincidence that Picardi was chosen to carry out this project, Anna Wintour, Vogue editor and New York icon, considers that this young talent is someone that perfectly fits the cultural momentum that the current politics bring nowadays.
Picardi is a millenial vehicle, anti-Trump, activist and promoter of oppressed voices. “He understands how people are thinking these days”, Wintour said. “He is a very engaged activist. He wants to make waves, which I think it’s important. He wants to generate conversation points not from anger, but rather a useful point of view”.
The importance of a voice such as Phillip’s in a position in the industry is that it brings priority to contents which are commonly not visible. As discussed in the TedxTeen talk, after his mother did not talk to him and nobody was at his side, “for the first time in my life I felt what it was like to be truly and completely alone”.
“Our mission is to celebrate and show the upcoming voices and the new perspectives and create a platform which allows them to share their powerful stories. Our objective is to show that by celebrating them, we are truly celebrating all of us”, the editor points out.
In Them, we are exposing stories, people, voices that inspire from politics, news even to pop culture through the eye of the LGBTQ+ community. “We have a team of brilliant journalists, writers, editors and video producers, as well as columnists with different perspectives and exciting stories to tell”.
One of the most interesting proposals is the community construction through a media. The collaborative culture in Internet is something that they take very seriously, and from there Them looks to invite all of the voices from all different parts of the world to write personal essays, poetry, photograph and send it to their page to be published. In Them, they search for and love to find new talents. “This week, we are covering Rupaul’s Drag Race and LGBTQ+ equality in the Bermudas, but also the story of a butch woman who has learned to love her breasts. It always is a good mix”, he adds.
“We’re living in the midst of a cultural revolution that’s driven by young people who believe in fighting for equality — and who are queerer than ever before”.
The editor feels that in the media there should have been a space to represent the queer generation, but in a space where they are treated respectfully, lovingly, considered and well-informed, because this community reflects the moment that we are living through.
“One of the reckonings we’re experiencing in our movement now is the erasure of trans people from our communities, and the perpetuation of the male gaze in media by prioritizing gay men’s perspectives and representation”.
In them they don’t resist to a single format, and they explore from podcasts to audiovisual platform programming.
Under Picardi’s direction, Teen Vogue traffic went from 2 million single visitors to 12 million, which is why it is expected that Them causes great encouragement repercussion so that nobody feels left out and realize how truly important they are.
Translated by Yerko Donoso
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