Editor’s Letter: New Perspectives
Just as we were finishing this issue, the world turned upside down.
I won’t tell you the whole story. By now, you know it all by heart (the beginning, anyway): the way it spread slowly at first, then very quickly. The way our daily lives changed in that same pattern.
As we went home and set up our desks, stocked our pantries, and devised new ways to communicate, we started to see the world in a different light. I, at least, started taking pleasure in little moments: making coffee in the morning and savouring those first few quiet minutes of the day, walking through the neighbourhood and smiling to neighbours (from a distance) on my lunch break, listening to the radio, calling my mom more often.
At press time, emergency rooms are packed, and restaurants are empty. Those of us as-yet spared from the direct tragedies of this crisis have been afforded an opportunity to pause and reflect. When your job is making magazines, a fresh perspective on the world can be a powerful thing.
At first, the questions we started asking around the virtual office centred on what we should or should not publish. How to cover our current moment while staying true to what the magazine has always been?
The answer we came to is that these two experiences are not incommensurable. In fact, they’re complementary. Until we get through this, the best service we can offer is to remind ourselves of normalcy, and to provide an opportunity for escape. That happens to be what we do best, anyway.
After all, we will travel again soon — maybe, with any luck, not long after you’re reading this. We’ll drink martinis in hotel bars and we’ll dress for dinner (and for work!).
What you’ll find in this issue is our original intention, the feeling we set out to achieve when we started work on it months ago. That is: excitement, curiosity, a sense of pleasure in the things we love. I’m particularly glad it happens to be our Spring Style Issue, which offers some of the most bold and vibrant looks we’ve ever photographed. Plus, you’ll also find the first-ever edition of Sharp Auto, the newest piece of our growing stable of Sharp brands.
This issue is a celebration of everything we crave and enjoy, and a tribute to a life well-lived. Because in times like this, you quickly realize there’s no sense in living any other way.
Peter Saltsman
Editor-in-Chief
