No Agency

How did the magazine come about? 

We started doing a newsletter once a month over the course of a year, and that eventually became the No Agency Annual, which was our first book. One of the early issues of the annual was a vacation issue, and we had so many people send nudes of themselves on vacation that our printer at the time couldn't bind the issue. We didn't really know what to do with these images. We were in the office brainstorming when one of our friends happened to come by, and she said, “Why don't you do a separate thing of just the nudes and have it be an insert in the issue?” We said, “Yes! We can call it No Erotica.” And it just kind of went from there, after that year we decided to continue with No Erotica and make it a magazine. 

Why did you decide to continue?   

It's fun to do. People get excited to shoot for No Erotica, or write for it, as erotic stuff is rarer and rarer in the fashion world. I think it's a good outlet for creatives to do things that they're not normally asked to do. 

So it started as this very user-generated, sort of accidental premise, but the magazine itself also riffs on old nude magazines, yes? 

Yes, for instance the magazine is saddle stitch bound, which we feel really passionate about keeping, even though it limits our page count pretty significantly, because the old porn magazines that we look to for inspiration are all like that; the likes of Leg Show and Barely Legal. We are definitely inspired too by the graphic design of those ‘90s magazines. 

We were also lucky enough to inherit Richard Kern’s press copies of all the porn that he shot back in the ‘90s. He goes through periodic bursts of, “I have too much stuff. I need to get rid of it.” So he gave them to us. That sort of kickstarted our interest, and then we've collected more, finding things in thrift stores, or we love places like Ram Books in London. 

What’s the process like for compiling each issue? 

People always ask, “What's the theme for this issue?” It’s like, the theme is erotica. You could put together any of the stories in any order and it would be cohesive, just because it has an overarching theme. For this particular issue, we got the artist Marilyn Minter to do the cover story, and that definitely did inform the rest, it’s a much more female-focused issue. I think that is something that we do more broadly; we get the cover story done, and then we curate the rest of the magazine around that. I don't know if that's how other people do it. Neither of us come from magazine backgrounds, so we're making it up as we go, and that's what has worked the best for us so far. 

Do you think that gives you some freedom, because you don't know the conventions?

I think so. We've also learned so much through doing this. Obviously on the technical side, in terms of getting something ready for print with no experience, but also in terms of the creative production. We produce everything that's in the issue; we're the ones making sure the shoot happens, and I think the things we’ve learned through that have translated into the photo agency we just launched, after Issue Four came out. We're always happy to learn something through the process, and I think we walk away from each issue feeling that we've expanded our skill set in some way.

What was this fifth issue like to work on?

Working with Marilyn [Minter] was such a dream of ours, and she's become a very good friend and an amazing person to ask for advice on things. Building that relationship through this has been amazing. It was also an honor to have Hari [Nef] trust us with this shoot, as nude shoot is a scary thing for people, and it can be nerve-racking. It also is a testament to our casting director, Emma Mattel, who did such a great job just making everyone feel comfortable. The writing in this one is just so good too, it’s a big level up in terms of quality and the writers we have; Criss Moon, our editor, did a great job with that. 

How did Marilyn Minter’s involvement come about? 

We were really stumped on what to do for this issue for a long time, because since starting our photo agency we’ve been producing shoots for magazines that aren't ours, and that made it hard to get into the mindset of making No Erotica. But Marilyn kind of fell into our laps because she had emailed us asking for a couple of our girls to shoot as references for her paintings. We thought, ‘We should ask Marilyn to do the cover!’ She was really excited, and she showed us her book Plush, which is now out of print and very hard to find. It features portraits of pubic hair that she had originally done for a different erotic magazine. That magazine, after seeing the final photos, thought that the images wouldn’t connect with their male audience, so they shelved the project, and then it became Plush, which is one of her most iconic books. 

The original idea for this issue, then, was to just to feature pubic portraits, and we brought Emma in to cast because we didn't know where to start: How do we cast people for photos of their pubic hair? We did an in-person pube casting in the office, which was definitely one of the most absurd days of my professional career. We had flown Emma from London to New York to do it, and when she got off the plane and got to our house, she said “Okay, I've been waiting to tell you guys, but I have some interest from Hari Nef. She’d love to do it.” 

What’s the audience for the No Erotica like? 

We had already seen the audience for the issues that we would make from the newsletter. The people who bought those tended to be people who are into collecting things, who view each issue as a collector's item. From the beginning to this issue, we've been able to have more women as customers, which is something that I really wanted to do. One of my main goals in growing the magazine is to make it a publication that can speak to both men and women. In the early issues we didn't really know what we were doing, and that first wave of interest was very male. I love our male customers, but bringing a bit more of a feminine voice into the fold, where we have more of an equal gender split in terms of readers has been a priority. From the orders for this issue so far, I'm seeing that that's working, which I'm pretty proud of.

You both are a couple as well as co-running the agency. How have you found navigating a relationship alongside working together? 

I don't know how we could do it any other way. I think both of us were bad at having normal relationships – we're both very work-oriented and passionate about what we do, and it's kind of hard to turn that off. It's good to be able to wake up in the middle of night and say, “I can't sleep because I’m stressed about this thing.” And someone else isn’t saying, “Oh my God, you're so obsessed with work.” We are also the only two people working on this full time. As such a small team, the only way to get everything done is to work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and by being together we're able to do that without judgment.

I’m interested in the kinds of talent that you represent in the agency more generally, it seems that modeling is rarely the focus.

The number one thing for us is that we don't want anyone who views modeling as their career. We really pride ourselves on having talent who are using modelling as one of their many platforms; to meet people, get their face out there, and make some extra money along the way. If you want to be a professional model and that be your career, there's plenty of agencies to do that. But we want to help people grow in accordance with their long term goals. We think it's healthier, mentally, for all of your worth to not be completely wrapped up in your appearance.

That ethos feels similar to why you launched the agency too; as a response to something that you’ve noticed is missing in the broader landscape.

As a company we are always looking for the gaps in the industry that should be filled. In doing this, I hope that we motivate brands and other magazines to get a bit sexier again, because I feel that people miss that. With each issue we make, with everyone who is involved there is such an excitement around doing it, because it is such a departure from what they're being asked to do on a daily basis. So the creative talent is ready to work on this stuff, it's really the people calling the shots who should be brave enough to venture into that world.