EDITOR'S LETTER

“I know it’s a lot, but is it enough?” Diana Vreeland.

Perhaps this is what motivates us. I interviewed TomFord a few years ago and he told me that worrying is something that drives him, saying, “I think it drives a lot of people in different creative fields. The moment you become complacent and think, ‘Oh, I’ve done this, and I’ve done that’, you stop being good. I think you have to constantly question what you do and challenge it. It doesn’t mean you can’t appreciate it.”

And so, this issue, while focusing on heritage and legacy, is also inherently about creating the future. We were lucky enough to interview Christophe Goineau, creative director of men’s silks and men’s universe designs at Hermès, on a flying visit to Sydney. He has such a great latent energy and totally creative spirit. And quite apart from his day job, which he has had for nearly 40 years – I know – he DJs house music too. He is adept at the language of Hermès and while there is a comprehensive archive in Paris at his and the design team’s disposal, he is a seeker of newness.

In the lead up to this issue, I visited the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra and discovered a wall of work by Magnum photographer Trent Parke at his exhibition The Christmas Tree Bucket. It was evocative storytelling that was unsettling and moving. In this issue we have run four images from his latest book, Coming Soon, which includes photographs from road trips around Australia and documents the rapidly changing landscape of our society. It has a yearning, a sadness, as so much that he has recorded over 23 years has already gone or changed. It’s a funny thing, heritage; it bestows history and a kind of nobility as though everything will be okay if you have it – and yet it is so easily lost.

Issue 28 of 10 Men Australia is out now.

Top image: Alison's picture of Trent Parke’s work ‘Television on’ (2007), part of his emotive exhibition‘The Christmas Tree Bucket’, at the National Gallery of Australia

@alison_veness