Lampoon, 10 Years – From the Digital Tribes to a Single Obsession: Sustainability 

Ten years of Lampoon: our story, from college to a stool in the newsroom, all the way to the Digital Tribes and the fashion industry—the world has changed: today, the only obsession is sustainability

In the beginning: college, a stool

I was about to graduate in dentistry, but all I wanted was to write novels. I landed at Vogue Italia, as an intern, and started to get a sense of what Franca Sozzani’s job entailed. She would remain my reference point. In the beginning, during my first few days in the Piazza Castello office, I didn’t even have a chair—I sat on a stool reading book presentation sheets. I was a 22-year-old kid: sending faxes, assisting at exhibitions and events, scrolling through digital archives to search for images. They offered me a project-based contract, and I accepted. A year later, when they offered me a full-time position, I turned it down. In the meantime, yes, I had graduated in dentistry.

From Saatchi & Saatchi to NYU – the Memoria publishing house

I joined Saatchi & Saatchi on Corso Monforte, once again as an intern, a junior copywriter. Later, when they offered me a permanent job, I quit again. I left for New York, asking my parents to fund an MBA and I attended the classes at NYU —those weeks between Bleecker Street and 14th Street, doing nothing but partying, spending money I didn’t have, wandering around clubs with Gianandrea and drinking vodka with Margherita, changed my life. I had already written two novels, unpublishable and unreadable— in those months, there in New York, I wrote the first pages of I Postromantici.

I came back to Italy and started working as a dentist: I volunteered at a shelter, fixing cavities for people in need. It was 2006; Martina and I were strenuously talking about culture and books. I met the Ralph Lauren managers—they asked us for an invoice, and we went to the notary. The publishing house was named Memoria—we found our first clients: Dom Pérignon, Saab, Fendi, Armani. We made a bad impression with Ittierre in New York. We published books and projects. We came up with a festival in suburban squares, with actors and writers. We were young, reckless, naïve—how many things we have learned on the way.

The first magazine was TAR—Martina got the proposal to work as an editorial team from Gianluca through Emanuele. We became partners with Éditions Jalou in Paris to run L’Officiel in Italy. I made up a job for myself without having any idea how it was done. I got the chance to see the whole process, from negotiating with newsstands to color proofs, from adv sales to human resources, from budget management to financial administration. The guidelines from France were vague, and I wanted to dive into every detail. It lasted two years, then there was a split—for me, a severance deal.

The Digital Tribes – Lampoon had to make noise; in 2017, the highest revenue – in 2025, ten years

Porto Cervo, July 2014. A store opening, Louis Vuitton had invited journalists, editors—including me—and the first influencers. Chiara, Candela, Paolo, Eleonora. On the rocks, with the sea behind and a railing—I snapped a photo; it looked like a fifties set with poor lighting. I wrote Keep on Shining and tagged everyone. The others reposted it. It was all spontaneous, with no strategy. It was one of the first Digital Tribe triggers, and it had a media effect that even we hadn’t expected. In September—I still wonder today with what recklessness—I founded Lampoon. The first issue was released in 2015, ten years ago.

I have never been a visionary, not even now: I’m not someone who anticipates the times or predicts the future. I’m someone who reads the present, someone who writes about the passing of time. I’m someone who, when he can and manages to, floors the accelerator. I didn’t realize where I was headed—but at that time, I slammed on the accelerator all the way. Lampoon was a blast: my quiet life as a well-behaved boy, raised in a vain, bored, and decorated Italian society, turned into frenzy. Lampoon had to make noise, include, and involve. The nights at the Killer Plastic, parties, – the fashion shows and the Sanremo singers—it was all blended into an immediate, digital narrative. Fashion was basking in an exclusive—not inclusive—dimension. Back in 2015, fashion was not democratic: it only wanted to cater to a wealthy, elite world—now, on the contrary, it’s become too democratic, so much so that it’s lost its aspirational magnetism and has to tackle a more toxic crisis than many it has already overcome. Lampoon was born at that precise moment: the beginning of fashion’s democratization. Its subtitle was Snob & Pop. Lampoon was a catalyst. It was madness, a feast.

Nick Knight, Susanna Cucco, Stefano Boeri

In 2017, we reached our highest revenue—but on the editorial side, we had problems. Lampoon was an independent but mainstream publication—that duality didn’t work. We had to change our approach. The digital power boomeranged: everyone who had overused it, now had to face a reputational issue. We went to London and met Nick Knight—he agreed to work with us. We asked Susanna Cucco to work on the graphic aspect—she agreed. A year later, Alex Fornaro took on the creative direction of the magazine and of the entire publishing house. I learned to trust others, to let others do what they knew—what they know—how to do better than I do. I’m a publisher, I’m someone who writes—someone who studies fashion and learns to understand photography. I stopped talking, I stopped shouting—I learned to listen.

I was no longer the glam boy who went out at night and invited you to every party—I wanted to grow up, too. Above all, my sensitivity—the one I mentioned above, my skill in reading the passing of time—compelled me to change perspectives. Years were going by, and the world was calling for a raw, unflinching honesty. Perhaps I couldn’t rationalize it, but I sensed it.

In 2019, I requested a meeting with Stefano Boeri. I wanted Lampoon to find a banner to march under, a commitment to devote itself to. I wanted Lampoon to represent Milan around the world—and I wanted Lampoon to become what it needed to be: a stronghold of civilization and culture, not a marketing and PR agency. It was a drastic stance—at a time when all other publishing houses, all other magazines, were turning into content factories, into creative agencies hunting for clients.

With the pandemic, ambition became an emergency: for five years, an obsession with doing better

Then came the pandemic crisis. Everything I had once considered my ambition became, first, an emergency, then survival. No more commercial department: no one would be running around Milan and Paris knocking on doors to close advertising deals. We would simply do the work: clients would come when they appreciated the message we were putting out with Lampoon.

Stefano Boeri signed on as editor in chief along with me and Alex Fornaro, for the issue that marked our change, in the fall of 2020. Lampoon, an Italian quarterly, the way it was founded, had run its course—Lampoon was reborn as it is today, an international publication edited in Milan, biannual. It then took five years to shape Lampoon into what it is now. Five years of research, coherence, and identity. Five years in which we became obsessed with improving, with stepping up our game, going further. So much ambition, so much work and heartbreak in the inevitable downfalls—and so much love in getting back on our feet. We kept telling ourselves there’s no job more beautiful than ours, crying when we realized how many people could just do without us, dreaming when we felt the beauty and hope we were able to sow. Every day, we asked ourselves which direction we should head in, what the purpose of our research was. 

The word ‘sustainability’ and its synonyms

Among the questions we keep asking, one recurs again and again, always in a slightly different form: what drives us? What keeps us restless? What still makes our hearts beat faster? What is it that makes us feel useful in this moment? What is the trail we follow and the one we leave behind? Drill Baby Drill spits humiliation into our neurons. The July heat, the melted ice, concrete covering the land, plastic in the ocean. What else is there to talk about—what else is worth doing—except, in whatever way we can, helping fulfill the utopia of changing common habits, the prayer of cleaning every single drop of the ocean?

The word sustainability, and all its synonyms: transparency, sincerity, honesty, civility, community. Human respect, civic commitment. Publishing must be ethical. Any business, today, must be ethical. The word sustainability has been overused, diminished, ridiculed, and discredited—in these past five years, I’ve tried to replace it with all the words I mentioned at the start of this paragraph. Then Donald Trump said Drill Baby Brill. A reaction was sparked. I realized that even buried in the mud, that word, sustainability, we have to keep using it.

Lampoon: hemp and culture in sustainability

We will grow hemp, plant trees, loathe plastic and all synthetic fibers and chemical dyes. Hemp can be a driving force for Italian manufacturing, for Italy’s image, for a new generation of entrepreneurship. The hemp supply chain is the practical goal of our editorial work at Lampoon. For at least the next ten years.

Lampoon, the Cultural Magazine about Sustainability. We seek out the culture of sustainability. Many will continue to turn up their noses—buyers, boomers, and so many others—telling us that sustainability is all talk but interests no one, that sustainability doesn’t sell. They’ll see Lampoon as a publication restricted to a supposedly dull topic.On the other hand, there will be those who think like me, obsessed as I am: sustainability is the only commitment that’s truly worth discussing today, the only principle worth thinking about, producing, and communicating. Franca Sozzani reminded us that, sure, you can’t please everyone—and more definitely, you shouldn’t please everyone. Lampoon won’t please everyone—and that’s fine with us. Lampoon will catch the eye of those who care about sustainability. For at least the next ten years, my love.

Carlo Mazzoni