VERY 12 Editor's Letter

Welcome to the anniversary issue of VERY magazine!

It’s now been 10 years since we published the first issue of VERY magazine. Then came the VERY CITY and VERY FASHION guides in 2000, followed by the more recent addition of VERY Ecological CITY guides and VERYstylemap.

Reflecting on the last decade, I sat down to do a headcount of our many publications: 12 VERY magazines, 1 VERYeye2eye magazine, 47 guides (that includes London, New York, Paris, Berlin, Rio and the global fashion guides) and 2 maps (Ecological London and Hyères) we have made to date. No wonder we’ve been busy! While I look forward to many more, I am equally excited to be launching VERY-eco.com this fall. What can I say? I am happy to write this today.

We started preparing this project in 1996. I was going back and forth between New York and London, and on September 5th 1997 I held the first copy of VERY in my hand. It was exhilarating and deeply scary.

I cycled dizzily back from the printers on 18th Street with my first copy dangling from the handle bars, past Washington Square, through the West Village, all along wondering if it was the best, or worst thing I’d ever done in my life.

I doubt I’ll ever find the answer. All I know is that 10 years later my entire life still revolves around VERY and its offspring, the art and the artists involved, the photographers and photography, the fashion and the issues we cover.

I’m particularly happy that many of our contributors are great longstanding friends. The same applies to our supporters. It is a VERY Family. These days creative collaborators adorn our covers. The rule is, whoever is on the cover, (his or...) her work will equally be featured in the pages of the magazine. No such thing as “just a pretty face” at VERY!

This issue’s cover presents Lauri Bortz who has been involved in VERY UP & CO since its inception as a gallery in Tribeca. Inside you will find an excerpt of her upcoming book.

Sarah Shatz, cover beauty of VERY 9 as well as VERY photographer & team member, gives us the pleasure to celebrate the magazine’s birthday with her photographic exhibition at The Library in London. Thanks Peter!

Find some amazing stories, such as Hugh Thomson's experiences with the Ukukus at the Qoyllurit’i festival in the Peruvian Andes, or, one of an incredible life and talent, Vera Valdez.

Lastly, I am honoured to feature Oscar Niemeyer in and on this ten-year issue. On the back cover of the magazine, I look at his gaze and imagine Mr Niemeyer pondering the past century, humbling young VERY by “a digit.” A zero, meaning anything and everything.

Time, whatever it is. I would like to subscribe to his words, when he says “Life is a Breath...”

Uscha Pohl
London, September 2007