BLAG was founded by British twins, Sally A. Edwards and Sarah J. Edwards in 1992. 

Two hungry art school students, part time job wages and fake ID in hand, they began a journey to seek out, discover and introduce exciting new talents in the then handmade fanzine. 

BLAG captured a discerning audience and a reputation catapulted by positive press in major style and quality titles, who had discovered its unique approach and voice. A loyal following grew. For the record, BLAG is good old British slang, it means to get things by way of clever talk and that’s exactly how the magazine came to fruition, blagging interviews, into gigs and a lot of hard work.

By the age of 18, Sally and Sarah were also promoting under the BLAG name and persuaded some of London’s most buzzed about bands to come and perform in the pre-gentrified city they studied at, which rarely saw live music.

A year later, in a rented van, driven by one of the UKs finest guitarists – who shall remain anonymous  – and a 20 pounds donation each from their mother, Sally and Sarah moved to London continuing BLAG. Needing to earn some money, Sally and Sarah signed with a model agency and were immediately sent to hot new designer Alexander McQueen’s casting and chose to turn away having recognised some of the ‘90’s leading supermodels in the line who all seemed a foot taller. Their modelling career was short lived – there were only so many twin stereotype situations they could manage. 

As if rescued, they were both head-hunted by two separate – and competitive – music PR companies. Sally worked her way up through the ranks to become Head of TV at the independent pluggers responsible for Britpop’s biggest exports Elastica and an array of others, while Sarah went from being out on the road with one of Britain’s most loved and hated rock bands to a more glamourous world as national PR for Beastie Boys, Foo Fighters, Travis, Page & Plant and Public Enemy.

Sally and Sarah used their new connections to help market BLAG and produced a run of BLAG t-shirts, dished them out to talent and saw them appear numerous times on celebrity chests on Top Of The Pops, at Reading Festival and on magazine covers. 

Ironically, after leaving the model agency they were photographed by Rankin for Dazed & Confused, appeared in German Vogue, Japanese GQ and starred on the ubiquitous Placebo, Without You I’m Nothing album sleeve, shot by the late, great Corinne Day – who was responsible for bringing Kate Moss to British Vogue. Being on the shoots gave Sarah huge inspiration to develop her love of photography to a professional level through BLAG. 

Via their jobs, new social networks and experiences, Sally and Sarah were exposed to music and entertainment more in advance than ever before. By saving up salaries and investing back, BLAG was now a glossy magazine with distribution via Time Out and an ever growing press pack. 

BLAG was seen as hugely innovative at the time. Ads didn’t dominate the front section, there were no cover lines, just honest, raw portraits of some of hip hop’s brightest stars: GZA, The Pharcyde and ?uestlove were given their early or first covers, inside the magazine threw conformity out of the window. In collaboration with the award winning Yacht Associates (Blur) the design startled anyone who picked it up. Bright, bold design, humour, anything conceivable that didn’t fit the style magazine norm was added to the mix. By the time the third magazine had been published orders exceeded 30,000, yet advertisers weren’t used to the rebellious style and wouldn’t commit. 

As if fate would have it, at 23, Sally and Sarah were approached by hip art book publishers Die Gestalten Verlag to create a BLAG book, they jumped at the chance and were given a small advance but free reign. Joining forces again with Yacht Associates the group compiled a best of and yet-to-come. The book featured paintings, photography and illustration juxtaposing interviews with some of hip hop’s most notables, Redman graced the cover and the photo ended up famous and was even parodied in Vibe. Press reaction to the book was a sensation - Nylon, Trace, The Times, Blueprint, Sleaze Nation, Echoes, Kiss FM, XFM - all seeming competitors leant their support. Sally and Sarah arranged two major launch parties in London and New York. London saw an early performance by Slum Village and New York saw guests include future BLAG cover stars, Pharrell Williams and Adrien Brody. 

After the book, Sally and Sarah decided to unveil their extensive record collection at the encouragement of friend’s Fun Lovin’ Criminals and under the BLAG name made their DJing debut at Brixton Academy. Soon after they were invited to play at London’s most hard to get into West End clubs and nights at New York’s Submercer and Soho Grand - being met with press in Page Six and The Independent. They went on to DJ aftershow parties for Foo Fighters and Red Hot Chili Peppers with James Brown and for Y3’s launch party for London Fashion Week at Sketch – opening for N*E*R*D and Justin Timberlake, at Diesel’s Notting Hill Carnival party for Mark Ronson and Jazzy Jeff, then Pharrell Williams and Nigo’s ‘Ice Cream’ launch at The Sanderson Hotel. 

During this time Sally and Sarah set up BLAG as a blog, featuring upcoming musicians, films, designers and took the whole BLAG concept to the web – discovering the likes of Wiz Khalifa and Jaime Hayon. In 2004, style magazines reached shakey ground, Sleaze Nation and The Face closed their doors and Sally and Sarah felt passionate that it was time that their title was out on the street again. Taking full time joint roles as Publishers, Editors and Writers, they split the remaining duties, Sally as Design & Art Director and Sarah as Principle Photographer. 

Discovering ad rates were too low to make the business work, they researched new trends and thought, why not take a mix of the new thing called Guerilla Marketing and traditional product placement and create something brands would feel was more credible than an advertorial, by offering them prime positions in the magazine as key sponsors. They invited Chuck D, GZA and Mos Def to the non-executive board and the relaunch edition featured double covers starring André 3000 in time for Hey Ya and 50 Cent for Get Rich or Die Tryin’, inside BLAG introduced Justin Theroux (Ironman 2, Mulholland Drive) and grilled Chuck D, The Neptunes’ Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo along with Will.I.Am on world peace. 

The following issue saw PlayStation take a chance on the new sponsorship model and allowed BLAG creative control over four pages based on their infamous symbols, Yacht Associates and GZA were invited back to collaborate and PlayStation felt BLAG reignited their infamously creative symbols campaigns. Woven into the magazine as an art / essay piece, it sat alongside a huge long-form feature with Beastie Boys, BAPE’s Nigo wrote about Tokyo. Phil Frost and The Roots all featured. Across the next five years, the magazine went from a 100 pages to over 150 pages, printed on improved paper stock, yet still ‘retains the fun voice of its origins’ as The Guardian stated.

Covers include: Grammy, BAFTA and Oscar award winning talent: André 3000, 50 Cent, Beastie Boys, Adrien Brody, Cillian Murphy, Nelly Furtado, OutKast, Kasabian, James McAvoy, Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age), N*E*R*D, Rupert Grint, Franz Ferdinand, Julian Casablancas, Miike Snow, Slash. Features included Daft Punk, The Raconteurs, Amy Winehouse, Joseph Fiennes, Justice, MGMT, Malin Akerman, Ron English, Jeremy Renner, Andrew Garfield, Aaron Johnson, Jason Derülo, Gavin Turk.

Sponsors include: Nokia, Nike, ABSOLUT, PS3, BlackBerry, Fila, Oakley, EOS Airlines, Vaja, Olympus, PlayStation, Motorola and Pernod. 

In late 2010 BLAG joined forces with design software stalwart’s QuarkXpress to develop their debut deluxe App for iPad. Launched in 2011, the result was a long-form, custom designed, yet in tandem with the print of Vol.3 Nø 2 and added interactivity with bespoke horizontal and vertical views, video, animation and audio.

During the first half of 2011, BLAG worked with Mercedes-Benz on their debut music project to create a brand new song for their 125th Anniversary PR campaign. Sally and Sarah selected talents: Grammy Award winners David Banner and Estelle and newcomer, Daley. They brought them together in the studio to Executive Produce a brand new song ‘Benz’ inspired by Janis Joplin’s ‘Mercedes Benz Song’. Sally and Sarah wrote, produced and directed a music video to accompany ‘Benz’, released it via iTunes, created a series of ‘Making-Of’ films, photographs and interviews with the talent for a long-form piece in BLAG and the debut App. Mercedes-Benz used the content for their 125th Anniversary press campaign reaching an audience of over 1.6bn.

Still purely owned and run by Sally and Sarah, 2012 marks the 20th Anniversary of BLAG where it will evolve encompassing screen.