Suzy Bell
He’s decidedly upbeat, helluva hip and deliciously quirky. He’s the feverishly talented young editor of Directions men’s magazine. Brendan Cooper (28) is ever so stylish in antique velvet green Diesel jeans, black Woolies T-shirt, Adidas trainers.
With a BA in psychology and after two years gallivanting around Europe, he cut his teeth on Playboy magazine where he was so determined to get into the magazine market that he offered to work without a salary for eight months. He learnt everything from production to budgeting and admits he was “very green, but it was a fantastic experience”.
Having carved a creative space for himself over a year and a half as a feature writer for Elle magazine, he resigned because he was “bored” in the context of the lack of scope women’s magazines offered him. But since his appointment as editor of Directions in August last year, the magazine has had its best-selling issues to date.
Spiked with a new energy, the layout and design are clean, crisp, and very elegant. The writing sizzles with intelligence and mighty fine humour on everything from music and dance subcultures to how to make your own beer, slum it in style, start an investment club, wear a suit …
In a letter to the editor (March 1998 issue) a Johannesburg stockbrocker beautifully summed up the magazine: “Thanks for a funky, sly and highly amusing read. Your journos have that tasty edge. When’s your company going public?”
If the overseas trends of popular English men’s magazines like FHM, Maxim and Loaded, which Cooper says “are all out-selling Cosmopolitan in England”, then there’s no reason why Directions shouldn’t do the same. “On a global level men’s magazines are starting to sell more. By comparison women’s magazines are quite staid and boring, so women are also starting to buy men’s magazines. I think there is great potential for men’s magazines in South Africa. We don’t buy photos and syndicate stories from all over the world. We make everything ourselves here, it’s original.”
Cooper says men in South Africa are becoming more magazine literate. “For the rest of the world it happened a decade ago, for us it’s only happening now.”
The magazine targets the 18-to 35-year-old single male, with an expendable income, loads of attitude and a high interest in fashion.
“We’re high on irony, being a fun, informative, easy-to-read magazine that doesn’t take it self too seriously. But style and fashion, we take very seriously.”
Something Cooper also takes very seriously is women, and we’re talking a hefty dose of healthy respect and appreciation. His former editor, Shona Bagley (editor of Elle magazine), said: “The fact that he really likes and empathises with women really comes through in his writing. Brendan has a great sense of humour and a lovely brain. He was always a good writer and now he’s a serious talent to watch out for because he’s doing wonderful things with Directions.”
With Directions having a female art director, the very sussed Jennifer Marrier, it’s refreshing to see, as Cooper says, “local girls shot in a very sexy way. But we are not going the Playboy route. We appreciate women. We make them sexy but it’s empowering to them. I’d hate to have anything that is offensive to women. The way we treat our women editorially and pictorially is very ironic. It’s taking the piss out of men’s perceptions and men’s stereotypes.”