The cover is decorated with a mug with a smile, a kind of children’s drawing far removed from the tempting photographs usually published in cookbooks. All the things we cook The recipe book of the famous Danish chef Frederik Bille Brahe is, with sixteen thousand copies sold, the best-seller of his Apartamento publishing house.
At the helm of the biannual decoration magazine of the same name, a book collection, a furniture publishing house and a wine bar, this group has reigned since 2006. about the contemporary art of living. Its founders, the Catalans Nacho Alegre, Omar Sosa and the Italian Marco Velardi, three curious and lively boys, always knew how to smell the spirit of the times and make decisions contrary to what common sense and marketing principles would dictate.
The three forty-somethings founded the magazine. Department, Distributed today in fifty thousand copies in forty-nine countries, eighteen years ago. “Omar was an artistic director, Nacho was a photographer and I wrote for brands” remembers Marco Velardi. At first, his desire to launch a magazine showing private interiors was more of a hobby.
Approving the press
When Department was born, remembers Omar Sosa, “The world was very different culturally. Instagram and Pinterest did not exist, only Flickr existed [site de partage de photos en ligne] and my space [plate-forme de blogs]We chat on Skype, we call with BlackBerrys…” However, the idea of joining forces with Marco el Milanés, whom Nacho Alegre had met during a previous project, quickly caught on among the people of Barcelona. “We, who had always wanted to be international, were afraid of creating a magazine designed by and for the people of Barcelona” explains, specifying that the trio, a pure product of the Erasmus generation, always communicates exclusively in English.
However, it was never considered choosing a rear base other than the capital of Catalonia: “This city is a fertile environment for magazines, photographers, graphic designers… The cost of living is quite low, the competition is less fierce and the quality of life is much better than in London or New York. It is a quiet metropolis and connected to the world, which has allowed us to prosper, go at our own pace and have a distanced point of view on our issues.” says Omar Sosa, who nevertheless tried to live in New York.
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