The magazine that became a day

A magazine finished at ten pages was rebuilt as nineteen that same afternoon. It showed the clothes, but not a day. The rebuild took only nine new pictures.

LATITUDE is a series of fictional days filmed as if documented. Each issue is one day in one city, told in chapters by the clock. The crew is AI. I decide what is filmed and what stays.

Copenhagen runs along the harbour: black granite at the Black Diamond at 09:40, the oak deck of the Royal Playhouse at 12:30, the Opera House at 18:15. Three outfits: a navy knit with a white collar out over it; a long-haired camel knit over champagne satin; a short brown leather jacket, open, over ivory knit.

THREE LOOKS, THEN A DAY

This was a fashion issue. The film is three looks cut on the beat of an ambient track, 21 seconds long.

The first magazine, finished on the morning of 21 October, had ten pages: cover, chapters, close-ups, colours, a field note with a harbour map, the opera at dusk, credits. It showed the clothes, not a day.

That afternoon I decided the magazine would follow the day, and it became nineteen pages. Around the three chapters went the hours a lookbook leaves out: the night before at Central Station, 21:30; one bag packed on linen; coffee and a cardamom bun over Nyhavn at 07:55; the canal by bike at 08:30; smørrebrød at 13:05; the harbour bus at 17:30; dinner at 20:30; the room at 22:40, the harbour still lit.

On the station photograph sits a frosted-glass timetable for tomorrow: each hour, each place, and the page it is on. One page holds only light: on 21 October at 55.7° N the sun rose at 07:50 and set at 17:58, and three blocks of sky colour are measured from the photographs. That page sits just before the Opera, because that is when the sun goes down.

Three pages came out: an itinerary, a page of styling notes, and the credits, so the issue ends on a picture.

On the last page, under the room, is one line no model wrote:

"At art school in London there was a girl from Copenhagen who studied graphic design. I hope she is well, somewhere out there in this city."

It is mine. Copenhagen was the first issue to carry something only the editor could know. It became one of the few things that do not change: each issue carries one first-hand thing, a memory or a fact checked at the source.

WHY THIS DAY

It began with a note on 19 October: a city abroad, pictures closer to a fashion editorial, the background thrown softly out of focus. I settled on modern buildings along a Nordic harbour, cold quiet air, and the clothes alone standing out sharp, and chose three places on the water. On 20 October I decided that the traveller is not one person but the camera, and in each city it can be someone who lives there. The magazine ends on a photograph because on 21 October I decided to drop the credits page and close on a picture that lingers.

WHAT IT TOOK

275 still images in four days, 19 to 22 October. 31 are in the film or on the pages. 29 video clips, 15 of them in the film. 28 versions of the edit after the LATITUDE title first went on.

The nineteen pages needed only nine new pictures. The day was mostly a decision about order.

WHAT WENT WRONG

The timetable did not fit. Laid over a photograph made without it in mind, it sat on top of things. On 22 October the picture was made again, with her in the left third and the upper right left dark and quiet. Now a photograph that will carry text is made with the space already empty.

The same picture twice. The moving illustration on the field-note page had been drawn from a photograph printed on another page. It was redrawn from one the issue does not use, and that is now the rule.

WHAT I CHANGED LATER

Copenhagen opens the night before. Since 23 October an issue opens on the morning she arrives, so she never carries one outfit across two days. The magazine had become a day, but the clothes still changed twice; since 30 October an issue is one day in one outfit. And she has a name now: Klára, an architecture student from Prague who travels by night train. Vienna was her second day.

WHAT THIS DAY TAUGHT ME

1. Clothes look different inside a day. Coffee at 07:55 shows no garment, but it turned a lineup into someone's life.
2. A picture that carries text is better made for it. The timetable laid on afterwards never sat right.
3. One thing only I know is needed. Pictures are the cheap part now. A memory, or a fact checked at the source, is the part nobody else can make.

WHAT I DIRECTED

I decided that the film keeps each look together; the first LATITUDE cut mixed them shot by shot, and nothing stayed. I asked for four or five clips per look, so every strong beat had a new picture, and two beats, after seeing four and three, for an aerial of the Opera at blue hour. And I decided that the magazine follows the day from the station to the room, and that the last words in it are mine.

That is the job: not making the pictures, but deciding what the day around them is.

— SACHIO KAWASAKI / FOUNDING EDITOR