One issue, several photographic voices
What contents pages reveal when a cover credit is only the beginning.
Published 2026-09-11
A magazine cover can become the image through which an entire issue is remembered. The contents page offers another way in: it separates stories, names collaborators and sends the reader to particular pages. This makes it possible to describe who did what without treating every person named in an issue as a contributor of the same kind.
The January 1989 Face credits Phillip Dixon for its cover, while the interior fashion stories name Stéphane Sednaoui with Paul Frecker for Popeye on page 30 and Michel Haddi with Venetia Scott for Les Yeux Dangereux on page 76. These are distinct collaborations within one physical object.
The August 1989 issue similarly credits Herb Ritts on the cover, Julian Broad and Christian Logan for Stormy Leather on page 64, and Paul Graham for Another Saturday Night on page 78. A search limited to cover subjects or cover photographers would miss those routes through the magazine.
In August 1991, the contents credits Corinne Day’s photography and Melanie Ward’s styling for Borneo on page 80. The editorial alongside it names Kate Moss as the model who travelled with them. Reading both pieces of evidence lets the catalogue distinguish photography, styling and the person pictured.
The new contents index records selected legible titles, printed page references and explicit credits. It is an aid to finding material in the object, not a full transcription or a claim that every contribution has been identified.
Objects discussed
- The Face Vol. 2 No. 4 · TMR-000538
- The Face Vol. 2 No. 11 · TMR-000539
- The Face Vol. 2 No. 35 · TMR-000526
