Four Two Nine – September issue
This fall, celebrated online media company dot429 will launch FourTwoNine, a new quarterly lifestyle magazine that will explore the worlds of celebrity, politics, and business while presenting its readers with an editorial mix of art, culture, and fashion.
Sarah Jessica Parker and Andy Cohen grace the cover of the first issue, the theme of which is “Friendship.” Parker and Cohen candidly talk about their own twenty-year friendship, their successes, and their families. FourTwoNine’s editors give us access to seven additional conversations between friends, including Justin Vivian Bond and John Cameron Mitchell; Max Mutchnik and his husband, Erik Hyman; Calvin Trillin and Larry Kramer; and Thom Browne and Andrew Bolton.
Helmed by Editor in Chief Kevin Sessums, formerly a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and executive editor at Andy Warhol’s Interview magazine, and publisher Richard Klein, founder and former publisher of Surface magazine, the launch issue will feature articles by Salman Rushdie, Michael Cunningham, Amy Fine Collins, Carrie Rickey, Brendan Lemon, Steven Thrasher, Henry Alford, Mark Jacobs and Helen Eisenbach. Mark Doty, a National Book Award winner, will publish three new poems in the premiere issue. Other contributors include photographers Ruven Afanador, Christian Witkin, Torkil Gudnason, and Stewart Shining as well as illustrator Robert Risko. Also appearing in the issue are artist David Hockney and artist and model Casey Legler.
“FourTwoNine is going to appeal to a broad and engaged readership,” says Sessums. “If I owned a car, I’d have as my bumper sticker ‘Never Judgmental, Always Discerning.’ I am hoping that that also describes our readership. I know it describes my editorial philosophy. While the magazine was created for an LGBT audience, it focuses on subjects we think our readers will find interesting, not just LGBT content. That’s only one facet of who we are as people, and I think that will be only one facet of what we are as a magazine.”
Cartier, Calvin Klein, Marc Jacobs, Armani A/X, Ralph Lauren, and Piaget are some of the brands supporting FourTwoNine in its premiere issue with ad placements. The first print run of 85,000 copies will be sent to FourTwoNine subscribers and sold on newsstands throughout the country through Comag for a cover price of $12.99.
“We wanted to create something that was both aspirational and inspirational,” says Klein. “FourTwoNine is a magazine about some of the world’s most interesting people. Timing seemed perfect for the launch; we created our digital property, dot429.com, three years ago and have built a strong following. That bodes well for the reception of the magazine.”
FourTwoNine will premiere on September 12 at the Fashion Institute of Technology’s A Queer History of Fashion: From the Closet to the Catwalk event and will feature in its first issue an eight-page original photo essay by Afanador inspired by the installation. An official launch party will be held the following week at Amy Sacco’s No. 8 in New York City.
