Arena Homme Plus

>> "I feel the men's magazines lack energy. Everything feels so affected and fey and not real somehow," Ashley Heath, Arena Homme+ editorial director, proclaims. "These new covers are just an attempt to do something a bit different and eye-catching on the newsstand."

The magazine's two Fall 2011 covers — the issue hits newsstands tomorrow — are a hint at the 30-page portfolio inside, which David Sims shot, employing his friends, assistants, and models who caught his eye. "[The covers] come from this quite raw, punky, digital space," Heath explains. "I feel there's more reality in David playing about with shapes and colors and cheap computer effects — deconstructing fashion photography if you like — than there is in the status quo . . . You look at a painter like [Gerhard] Richter and how brutal he is; he'll switch from a beautiful canvas to thinking, 'How can I do the total opposite of that?' I think there's an element of that with David Sims's new work. He's handing in stunning fashion images to Grace Coddington [at Vogue], then working on playful, experimental stuff for Arena Homme+."

>> With its new editorial team, the biannual Arena Homme Plus has become something of a brother publication to POP — they now share the same editorial director, Ashley Heath, and the magazine's new editor in chief, Max Pearmain, used to be acting menswear editor at POP.

Heath and Pearmain's first edition of Arena Homme Plus hits newsstands next Monday, April 11 in the UK (and Monday, April 18 for the rest of the world), boasting four different covers, one each playfully dubbed "Stephen," "Stevie," "Steve," or "Steven."

"The men's fashion magazine market has become so staid and predictable," Pearmain notes of his vision for the magazine. "It was actually more inspiring in many ways 15 years ago when there was just L'Uomo, Vogue Hommes, and Arena Homme Plus . . . We wanted to inject some surprise and some passion and some playfulness back into this world."

Pearmain himself styled New Order's Stephen Morris for the "Stephen" cover, artist Clunie Reid created scrawling artwork for the "Stevie" cover (left), David Sims photographed the "Steve" cover, and Steven Klein, of course, captured the "Steven" cover. The Klein version of the issue — or Homme+ PLUS as it has been christened — comes with 45 extra pages of more "hardcore" content. Some of it has already been posted online (NSFW) and will only be sold in selected independent retailers and online.

The move back to Arena Homme Plus is something of a coming home for Heath, who used to edit the magazine himself: "It's been fun to return. I really built that magazine on blood, sweat, and tears back in the day, so it was great that David Sims, Steven Klein, and others from the glory days returned and contributed such strong, strange work. There's this sense of travel, of art and design, of the way the world is changing . . . We changed the paper stocks a bit and did that 'special sections' thing I'm into recently. The magazine is still niche, but it will appeal to a broader cross-section of stylish men."

Alongside contributions from Sims and Klein, the new issue also features work by Wolfgang Tillmans, Collier Schorr, and Ari Marcopoulos.