Much ado is made of the so called “end of printed magazines” but new ones continually come onto the scene determined to become the next buzzed about style bible. We spoke with Matteo Greco, fashion editor and now editor in chief and fashion director of a dandy new Italy based men’s mag named, “The Greatest“.

Simone Nobili by Giuseppe Gasparin. Stylist: Elisa Anastasino

MDC: How did you decide on the name of the magazine?
Matteo Greco: We decided on “The Greatest” because we wanted an epic name. When in September 2011 we started working on the magazine the team and I were always thinking about the name, that we wanted it to be very strong. One day while I was working on 300 problems to be solved and I was thinking about that “the really strong name”, out came … The Greatest. When I proposed it to the others, they all were happy and I’m very proud of it now.

Andrey Smidl by Stefano Viti, stylist: Matteo Greco

Theo Hall by Francesco Brigida, stylist: Enrico Maria Volonté

MDC: What do you hope will set it apart from other men’s publications?
Matteo: In my opinion we have nothing less and nothing more than other publications. We are just different. I believe our magazine’s strength stands in our team: all talents who work for The Greatest #1 are so young. I’m 25, the creative directors and the art director are less than 30, the fashion coordinator is 23 and our editor is 28. There’s not many magazines with a team so young. We tried to represent our kind of man, elegant and sophisticated. The magazine is different from others in that we don’t have fashion news or long and boring articles. The articles that are in there for this issue have the main theme as “Il Mediterraneo” (The Mediterranean”).

Diego Fragoso by Dario Salomone, stylist: Francesco Casarotto

MDC: We see that you interview 2 rising Italian designers and that many of the teams that worked on the stories are Italian? Will that be a focus or is that just for this issue?
Matteo: Fabio Quaranta and Christian Pellizzari are two rising stars. I really love them because they have a beautiful sartorialist cut and their work is always elegant, young and cool. And they are Italian. I love that the most. We wanted to explain that in our country you can find very talented young designers, photographers, stylists and other people really great in their work. We are young and we all work a lot, mostly without budget. So yes, I focused the magazine on the Italian culture.

Janis Ancens by Massimo Pamparana, stylist Matteo Greco

Harry Goodwins by Dario Salamone, stylist: Matteo Greco

MDC: Why Simone Nobili as a choice for the cover model?
Matteo: Simone is such a nice guy. I really like him. He has a beautiful face, and perfect body. He’s Italian and he looks like a 50’s or 60’s Italian actor or musician like Marcello Mastroianni or Luigi Tenco. He has something so classical and yet something so modern. He’s a rising star, he did Dolce & Gabbana and Givenchy S/S 12 campaigns and he’s working a lot. When Giuseppe Gasparin sent me the pictures of the shooting, I looked at the portrait and I immediately called Elisa Anastasino saying “Good job! You have the cover. I love this shoot”.

Simone Nobili by Giuseppe Gasparin, stylist: Elisa Anastasino

Check out The Greatest’ fashion film directed by Francesco Brigida and Michele Brandstetter de Bellesini starring Tomek Szczukiecki

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