After noticing a gap in the market for a luxury beauty title in print, Australian-born photographer Thom Kerr, alongside publisher Trish Lee-Geotsis, decided to launch Laud – a luxury beauty publication released quarterly across Australia, New York and Los Angeles.
The magazine features beauty, hair, body art and special effects shot in a high fashion editorial style with top tier models and personalities from across the globe.
Here, Kerr – the co-founder, chief photographer and creative director of the boundary pushing magazine – reveals how the magazine came to fruition, what it is about beauty that keeps him interested, and the future of Laud moving forward.
Life before Laud
After completing a fine arts degree (specialising in writing and directing) in 2006, I found myself freelancing as a writer, stylist and producer for a variety of niche publications. A lot of my friends loved fashion and performance so we used to collaborate on lots of projects together – so I fell into fashion rather organically through my social network. I love film but was addicted to the immediacy of photo shoots. You can easily spend months making a short film, whereas in photography the whole production is complete in a number of days.
I started by collaborating with a variety of photographers on the creative but soon realised that I wanted to step behind the camera. I think I had strong visual concepts that set me apart and I started getting my work published. In the beginning I submitted shoots until I developed relationships with a variety of titles.
Prior to my role at Laud Magazine, I'd been the Australian editor of Black (a luxury fashion magazine distributed internationally) for five years. I was curating content and working with the Australian contributors.
Just over a year ago, Trish Lee-Geosits (publisher of Laud) approached me about her idea of creating a magazine that celebrated hair and makeup artists. She had a very strong concept, and the more I looked around the more I realised there was a gap in the Australian market for a high end luxury beauty title in print. Which is surprising when you realise how big the beauty industry is.
Keeping the magazine unique
I think if you look at the Australian retail market you can see a big evolution in the style of imagery used to sell products. With instant access to international brands via the web, it's become clear that there is a new global aesthetic that consumers are responding to. The traditionally commercial ways of communicating we've seen in the past are no longer connecting with customers.
In the Australian market, brands that have embraced the change have thrived. Laud is the first publication of it's kind to embrace that change and reflect a more universal look with the material whilst still maintaining its own identity. We endeavour to find the right mixture of homegrown and international content that speaks to educated and fashion savvy consumers, not just those who work in the industry. We do this with thoughtful feature interviews with progressive creatives and personalities combined with editorials that are both aspirational and avante garde.
"Once you have a basic understanding of what makes an image beautiful, then you can begin to break the rules and explore new territory."
We always aim to create a conversation around the definition of beauty. I think it's the perfect publication for brands who want to connect to a beauty obsessed, forward thinking audience. Our readers come from a variety of backgrounds and are the creative leaders and tastemakers within their own communities.
Trends to look out for
Speaking from a more creative than technical perspective, I think that across the board in fashion there has been an anti-glamour movement that reflects the spirit of the 90's. This manifests itself in the paring back of everything, including beauty. We now see the use of film instead of digital, little to no retouching, barely there makeup and bed hair. Usually the makeup will have a subtle graphic detail against a raw skin look.
On the flip side, the celebrity obsessed world of social media reflects makeup and hair that's purely designed to be viewed through filters and doesn't look polished in real life. I think it's more important than ever to convey the quality and integrity of your product to survive an overcrowded market. Although the above approaches are dominating the market, I don't think all artists should aspire to only moisturise or contour like crazy. I think it's important that we remind people about the artistry of makeup – which is exploring all different aesthetics, perspectives and identities.
Aspiring to do the same work as everyone else does not equate to longevity in the industry and that's a philosophy that carries through to Laud's choice of content.
The future of Laud
We spent our first year developing the look and feel of the magazine and crafting our online presence while establishing our network of contributors. Now we will be rolling out some incredible new online features and focusing our attention on our web presence. This will make it even easier to purchase any product you see on the pages of Laud, as well as having your daily hit of beauty inspiration available on all of your digital devices.
We've been working with some fantastic brands on unique advertorial content to really connect our audience to products we love and as always we will strive to bring our readers the most exciting beauty stories designed to inspire.
