Behind the Cover: Andrew Richardson

This Friday morning, Richardson Magazine unveiled its 20th-anniversary Issue A9 with Kim Kardashian West gracing its cover. Interviewed by American author Bret Easton Ellis and shot by Steven Klein, the cover story offers rare insights into a wide range of topics that touch upon Kim’s private life as well her media dominance. What’s more, Klein’s sequence of photos spotlighting Kim was inspired by the 1997 Japanese animated psychological horror film, Perfect Blue. We recently sat down with the magazine’s founder and multifaceted creative, Andrew Richardson, where he discussed the commemorative issue as well as the legacy of the magazine.

“Why her? She’s the most famous woman in the world. She had a sex tape in the past. Sex and sexuality have always been a big part of her brand equity,” said Richardson of selecting Kim for the cover. In regards to the magazine’s longstanding coverage of scantily-clad women, he expressed: “I’m not interested in women looking very available to me or the audience. I was always more interested in aggressive women who you’d be more afraid of than feel like they were going to do whatever you wanted.”

As for the most unexpected circumstance to happen during Kim’s cover shoot: “Kim was actually on set naked shooting a cover and somebody gave her a robe and she disappeared and she was talking to Donald Trump. Thinking of getting Alice Marie johnson’s clearance, the final stage of negotiation. I thought we were going to lose the shoot, but Kim just kept on going. Obviously, we are living in a very eerie era of social media. It was like two social media stars talking about prison reform,” described Richardson.

Watch the intimate discussion play out in the clip above and then let us know your thoughts.