This year, 2022, marks our 25th anniversary. It is a landmark, and we’ve been incredibly blessed to have made it to a quarter-century.
When I started Lucire I had hoped it would be around in 2022 and beyond, but I couldn’t have foreseen the many changes on our planet over the last 25 years. We were full of the optimism that technology would solve problems, and had not foreseen that the US would fail by allowing Big Tech’s monopoly powers to grow, putting user engagement ahead of providing facts for global understanding.
We have not strayed from our mission, and that is to make beautiful content that’s factually accurate, with editorial integrity. We choose to unite people, not divide them. While we might not have the influence of the tech giants, we want to lead by example and do what is right. We want to be a shining light, somewhere you can turn to for consistently good journalism and visuals.
At the time of writing, we’ve done our 100th and 101st print covers, though we can’t show you just yet (we will after the 12th). I’m immensely proud of what the team has accomplished as we took a single website into various print editions, as well as spinning off additional websites. The relationships we’ve built, the photos, the articles, and the layouts—they all represent quite a journey for us all.
I’m overjoyed at the support we’ve received from all our supporters, from our readers to our advertisers, and special mention must be made of our licensees who placed their faith in us and our brand.
Since we’re showing off covers, I also want to pay tribute to those who have art-directed and designed our issues. Notable mention must be made of Miguel Kirjon, who pushed the envelope at Twinpalms Lucire, while Marwa Hussien has created some memorable covers for Lucire KSA that also take a departure from our traditional modelling shots. Valentin Lapusca at Lucire Romania back in the 2000s also created covers unique to that market, and looking back to that period, they have held up immensely well. Laura Ming-Wong’s tenure in the editor’s seat made us more fashion-focused, and you can see that in issues 21 to 26 in the 2000s. They have each shown that the brand can accommodate changes to suit their local markets.
In the header is a selection of covers from the montage that mark a period after Sopheak Seng joined as fashion editor and I pay tribute to him, too, for raising the standards of our editorial shoots. He has not only chosen many of our covers, he is also a talented fashion director, stylist and writer, who has my utmost respect.
This isn’t the only entry about our crew, because in coming weeks and months I’ll look at our photographers, fashion directors, stylists, make-up artists, hairstylists and models. Through the year we will celebrate our anniversary, leading up to October 20, our actual birthday. We haven’t decided on the exact form our celebration will take—for our 20th we put some of our favourite articles from the print edition online, but we hope to do something more meaningful. We’d like to involve our communities around the world, too, so please let us know if you have any thoughts.
We wish all our readers the best for 2022, and hope that this year brings more joy, stability, and certainty.
Jack Yan is the founder and publisher of Lucire.
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