Denude
A niche printed magazine, and e-commerce site, a brand, a consultancy. All in name of femininity, women and sustainability.
Meet Laurie Clémence.
Naming and its origin
My name is Laurie (Clémence) and I own and edit Denude Magazine. Denude simply means to strip (something) of its covering, possessions, or assets.
What I do and how I do it
I edit, head and direct the platform Denude. We are a (soon launching) e-commerce site, brand and consultancy, as well as a printed magazine. I founded the magazine in 2016, and have published issues and catalogues under the Denude brand since then. I finalised my Master’s with a thesis focus on sustainability and non-mass product last year, which led me to discover what is missing in regard to beauty and its relationship to sustainability in independent arenas. With that research, I am launching a realm of new products and services that are unique to our tone of voice and are what I personally stand for and try to emulate within my own life. My personal values vastly align with what Denude is and therefore the magazine moves as I do. Covid-19 has forced me to transform many things both personally and professionally. I live in London in normal times and I will be housing Denude in a studio when I feel it just to return and from then on, I hope to expand and scale the business outward sustainably.
What inspired me to start my journey in magazine publishing
Interestingly enough, I had always made magazines from a young age. I never sold them but I recently found them in my childhood home and I had made them purely for joy and documentation purposes. I have always been preoccupied with beautiful things and items; from men to cars, to silk clothing, to beautiful lingerie and beauty products that feel amazing on your skin. As well as that I have an obsession with beautiful places, dancing, music and freedom and I adore to locate photoshoots in places that represent the feeling of freedom. I think it is important for us all to dream. I had always curated collections of books, music and clothes and naturally that fixation with beautiful things that added substance to my life had to find a place to be documented. When I began, I could not find a magazine that represented beautiful and sustainable items of longevity. I simply began by investing around £500 of my own money into the first issue, to which sold out and from there I held the money back to go on and publish another and a thoroughly researched sustainability zine. I know print magazines are hard to profit from, and that’s why I have held back on publishing more than I have, but now that I have a different business model in place – I know the magazine will be able to emerge organically and without leaking money. I sit and design each rigorously back to back on paper. I can see and feel what it should look like in advance and I follow that and that only. It is my own intuition above anything else and knowing what works and knowing what does not.
Denude is more than a magazine. Denude is a brand.
I was excited to speak to you as this is what I am working on currently and I haven’t spoken about it publically. Mentally, I always knew Denude was more than a magazine and that I wanted to create more expansive ideas and projects. I also understood that my need to experience beautiful products that I see in my own imagination would eventually become so insistent that they had to come to physical fruition. We are launching a consultancy that is led by and in line with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, we want to work with beautiful start-ups and established brands that are aiming by 2030 to create huge change within their communities and widely in the fashion and beauty arenas. Our e-commerce store will stock our favourite non-mass and entirely transparent products by female artists that we know and love. Our in-house brand is a little further away, but I am working on designing delicate and exquisite products and they will exist in the near future. They will be led by femininity, beauty, honesty and transparency.
Denude USP (Unique Selling Proposition/Point)
In terms of Denude as a brand, our USP is that our consultancy and its transparency is heavily research based and in line and driven by the UN’s SDGs. I want to help consumers build and advance their relationships to makers of clothes, jewellery and beauty products. As well as this, we try to vastly educate our audience about consumption and the healthy relationships we can begin with consuming. If we build better communities, we can advance lives through honest conversations and kindness – kindness is at the core of our brand values. On a lighter side, I want our female audience to feel that the pursuit of beauty is not shallow or frivolous. I have experienced many reductive comments over the last few years about my expression of femininity, from silly comments about wearing heels on a regular day, or about being blonde or keeping on top of a skin care regimen. I want the company to eliminate the idea that women are non-dualistic. Women are of the most dualistic energy and that’s so powerful. We are never a finished product.
Tone of Voice and Communication
Quite simply through imagery – it states our tone and subject matter instantly. The writing and brand values are there to inform the audience of what we value and what we are adding to the conversation.
Integrity and choices made
Personally, I had to grow out of other jobs and believe that I can handle a business alone. With that, there is a conscious decision to create and engage with a sustainable business model that is created to work over a long period of time. In regards to the physicality, we printed minimal copies of each magazine – we went to the printer again only when we had sold the first 50, then the first 100 and so on. We printed on FSC 100% recyclable paper and I didn’t want to add any damage across the supply chain so I used a local printer, that way I could visit it, follow the process and collect the work myself. There were many simple decisions made to make the process less damaging. We do not always need to make 2 issues a year, so we don’t if we don’t need to. I don’t want to add anything to an overcrowded marketplace if I don’t think what I am stating is meaningful.
Social Strategy
Our new website (Denude Magazine) will be the front runner, as well as our Instagram (@denudemagazine). Instagram is great for revealing the authenticity and story of a brand – plus you gain instant interactions and feedback. In person conversations with our audience will be important when we are able to do so again. As well as online panels and engaging with and adding our voice to meaningful discussions.
I am a business woman, I am a creative person
The creativity is 70% of the job but the business side is a very intense and rewarding part of the job too. Creatively, I know when I have moved to the left of my comfort zone that that is where the great product or the great images are made. That part of the job is emotionally demanding as I am adamant to reach that mark. With that, I need a comforting and beautiful home to come back to and that motivates the business side for me. They integrate together in small moments. I find that when I am in my integrity, the correct clients and relationships come to me and that business naturally affixes itself to the creativity. The job is very varied, and I work with different clients now (it wasn’t always this way, even a year ago). Some days I am at my desk writing all day, after that I need around three days a week to be simply playful and creative.
My work runs into the weekend now, which I don’t mind. It’s a love and joy.
My daily schedule
My daily schedule varies but I sleep in most days until around 10am, I am not really an early morning person. I have my breakfast with lemon water and then from around 10-12pm I will answer emails. At midday until around 4pm I will be writing, having meetings with partners or clients, editing photographs, designing product or realising the magazine itself. 5-7pm is when I try to take photographs if needed that day. The day is all about communication so I try to fit all of the smaller jobs around the meetings I have planned. I drive to the post office to deliver parcels most days and I take my dog for a walk on my lunch. Around 6.30-7pm I have dinner and then I usually watch a film, read a book or listen to music, I take a bath with salts and then spend time with my loved ones. And I try to work out daily.
What motivates me. What inspires me
I am motivated by myself and the life that I want to lead. I want my life to be driven by integrity and beauty and for it to be considered. I find inspiration in the people around me and seeing the goodness in each of them and wanting to be driven by something bigger than myself. My drive is that we have to change the conversation around consumption and being socially responsible, whilst also being able to enjoy beautiful product and loving the lives we are living.
Working with people
I am very lucky in that most people I work with, the relationships begin very organically. Sometimes they will reach out to me because they like what the brand is doing and it is in line with the values of their own brand, or vice versa. I am naturally a talker; in my birth chart I have the communication house covered in planets. I love talking to people from every walk of life and I hope that people consider me someone enjoyable and nice to talk to. I think that actually is the basis of great relationships with clients, simply having honest and transparent conversations. The people I know and work with are highly aligned with my mission because the work would not be effective otherwise.
About mentors and the press
I had a hard time taking myself seriously as a business woman until I found mentors. I worked with a coach and a mentor last year both in personal capacities and they supported me in finding my voice in business too. From there on in, I knew I wanted to drive Denude forward. Now, and even when we began, gaining press would help us in our mission. We have had such little press; it is sometimes funny. I haven’t sought it or expected it, but I have had coverage outside of my own country more than in London. I have French relations on each of my parent’s sides of the family, and Denude as a name derived from a love of the culture I knew when I was growing up. The branding in terms of the name seems to be met easier or more well-liked by our French audience. I know Noel Gallagher said that when his band Oasis began that nobody wrote about them – not even to say they were bad, they just didn’t get a mention anywhere. I think our lack of press in the United Kingdom is a good motivation for me.
What is truly meaningful now (since the easing of lockdown)
I have had such intense discussions with my friends about what is truly meaningful now. Friends and family, fun, freedom and seeking meaningful experiences over false realities are what matter. I think people realise that their life has to feel good internally rather than it looking good from the outside and that community really matters. What I think will alter is that we look after our communities more. I don’t subscribe to the pandemic being a good thing because ‘humans are the virus’. No, that is simply wrong. We can care for the earth and live unselfishly, whilst also wanting a nice part of the world to exist for us – striving to have a nice home and a well-nurtured community. Duality is key. I will come back to it over and over.
About the New Normality
Have we entered the New Normality? I am not sure. I think the normal we had before was overly demanding and of course driven by capitalism. I hope people see that their work doesn’t contribute exclusively to their worth. The new normality should be that we treat each other with more understanding and compassion. I am interested to see if people hold on to their new found values.
The new reality and Denude business model
Fashion as a model has altered because people are recognising they do not need to take extensive business trips abroad or go to fashion shows every three months because it is what is thought of as normal. The business model had to change because it was broken even before Covid. I never prescribed to luxury trips away for certain groups of wealthy women. I never did it. I will travel when I need to and feel it necessary. Human health is the most important thing right now, and being responsible for one another’s safety. I personally feel motivated by my family and friends and staying healthy and safe.
About a New Humanism
I think if people become more aware of universal human values that are non-wealth driven and that we do share a common unity, the world will develop into a better place. I hope we care for each other more and realise just how good we can be when we raise our voices together. I hope we elect political leaders that represent a more thoughtful world and I hope the police system is abolished and ultimately defunded. We should be driven by community.
My mission, Denude mission
There is a current investigation into fast fashion factories in Leicester in the United Kingdom. There are garment workers who work for Boohoo, a disgusting fast fashion brand that is paying their workers only £3.50 an hour. I am revolted, angry and upset by this. I am also hugely motivated to eradicate these practices by raising awareness of how harmful fast fashion is. Our money is a political vote. There is no benefit in human abuses, only to those people who are sick enough to profit off of it. Denude’s consultancy will aim to counteract the conversations we have about labour, by changing the relationships clients have to their clothes and the workers who directly make them. This is going to be driven by my own research and the narrative of transparency and fairness. When we recognise that no one is above or beneath us, we will see change, but the business model at present is driven by egotism, the fashion industry prescribes to it, both in luxury and fast fashion. In luxury and high-end fashion there are people being abused, the way in which people are spoken to, treated and the conditions they are asked to work in are dehumanising. My mission is driven by the lack of respect people have for labour and the belief people have that other people being in poverty benefits them.
My brand consultancy will be 100% transparent, non-fussy and honest. The products are chosen based on relationships I have with the makers and the brand will be thoroughly researched and reductive of waste.
My future projects. My ambitions. My vision for what’s next
All of the behind the scenes building of the website is taking thorough time at present. My goal is to run a 360 transparent company that challenges the notions of what non-mass fashion is and can be in the future. Our clothes are a political act. To be able to develop relationships through my business with like-minded people worldwide is a privilege. In the short term, I can’t wait for all of this to launch. In the long term, I want to change the wider conversation about how we consume. Personally, I want to be happy, healthy and in love with life.
I am Laurie Clémence and Denude is my brand
