Return of the world’s dishiest magazine
FFF Zine, the “World’s Dishiest Magazine!”, is back with its fourth issue, and it’s all about love. Combining food and fashion — FFF stands for Food For Fashion — the first 30 pages read somewhere between a cookbook and a sex book. There are hot tips eg. cover your naked body in hunks of cheese, and recipes for dishes like Ex-Lover’s Cotton Candy: “Eat immediately with your current rebound to ensure the permanent obliteration of your ex’s memory and undying love between you and your rebound”.
FFF Zine’s visual language, encapsulated by the picture below, of a woman pouring beer from a tin over her naked body, reminds me of satirical titles like Buffalo Zine (Buffalo’s creative director Adrian Gonzalez-Cohen is actually interviewed here, about his families’ vineyard). Fashion magazines that take the piss out of the industry can sometimes feel like a perfect example of having one’s cake and eating it too: the models are all clad head-to-toe in Agent Provocateur and Loewe and Vetements, but their hapless poses and unfocused 50s housewife smiles suggest the whole thing is ironic. So you can enjoy the fashion, but also enjoy the smug feeling that you, like the editors, are above it all, somehow. My favourite is a homoerotic spread called Home Wears, featuring one hot man cavorting about in socks.
But the loveliest bits of FFF Zine are more sincere. One conversation, between the Australian fashion designer Emma Mulholland and the TV chef Pamela Clark is illustrated by photographs of Emma as a child, making Pamela’s most famous novelty cakes. Followed by recipes for Pamela’s stunningly elaborate ‘Smiley Shark’ and ‘Tip Truck’ cake, this feature is so genuinely original and heartfelt, it’s impossible to imagine it printed anywhere else.
Fashion and food are not natural bedfellows — the closest fashion usually comes to food is to video Emily Ratajowski in her underwear, rolling around in spaghetti — it’s heartening to see a magazine celebrate food in a way that is kitschier, and sweeter.
