People will tell you that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Fine, but satire is better. The Drunken Canal, downtown New York’s paper of record for gossip, personal ads, and scene reports, has taken the idea of Vogue and our supersized September Issue, and put their drunken spin on it. Their cover is a brilliant send up of ours, except their cover line is “DRUNK” and their muses wear Saint Sintra, the new favorite designer of NYC’s next generation. The issue will be stuffed into the newspaper box on East Broadway on September 10, available for pre-order now on the paper’s website.
In keeping with the moniker, founders Gutes (just Gutes!) and Claire Banse and I go for icy wines on a hot summer day just north of Canal Street to discuss their new issue. “I’m looking for something vivacious,” Gutes says as she arrives, welcomed in by the hostess who greets her warmly with “Oh, I’ve seen you here before,” before Gutes can produce an ID or vax card. Banse shuffles in just in time to order; she’s the sommelier of the pair. “On the record, I’m anti-French wine,” she demurs as we sit down. They settle on the Julia Bernet, Corpinnat ‘Cuvée U’ sparkling white—Spanish.
As a duo, Gutes and Banse are ebullient, charming, frenetic—exactly the qualities in two young women that rub all the olds and scolds the wrong way. As such, they’ve gotten their fair share of blowback and eyerolls. There’s even a Sober Canal: newsprint that seems to spend its pages trying to tamp down the recklessness that Gutes and Banse inspire.
All I can think about when I meet them—Gutes in a black dress, blazer, and pearl necklace; Banse in white jeans and a cropped Eckhaus Latta cardigan— is not how wrong they are, or whatever the naysayers think, but how right they are. Here, with me in the back of a perfectly civilized natural wine haunt on the final summer Friday night, are the last two twenty-somethings who actually want to be in publishing.
Features in Business of Fashion and The Cut have recently chronicled fashion editors’ mass exodus to tech with a sideways eye, viewing it as the death knell for an ever-shrinking industry. Gutes and Banse are technically media, but they share nothing with the media landscape said editors are leaving. The pair have almost no team and are operating on instinct—and they have great instincts like all the glossy mag greats before them. As they speed through what’s in the new issue and sidebar in whispers about what they don’t want to reveal to the lady from Vogue, it’s evident they love making a magazine. They love the fanfare, the idealism, the drama, the silliness of it all. Even if they are not seasoned editors (or writers: a previous interview mentioned that, several issues in, they finally downloaded grammar.ly) they are steadfast about making a print publication that collects the stories and moods of their era.
They decided on a September Issue because it’s funny and because it gave them the runway to try something new. Old Vogue layouts from the 2010s provided a visual reference for the issue, a departure from their old school newspaper aesthetic. “We’ve gotten to play with so many different things for this issue. We switched up the formatting, playing with the idea of magazine formatting versus the idea of newspaper formatting, and then we made space for longer spreads, not just giving ourselves two pages,” says Banse, “We’re letting ourselves—”
“Letting things breeeaaattheeee,” Gutes kicks in.
Banse continues: “Normally, we’d squeeze four pieces onto one page to utilize the space. Now we are really focusing on image assets, and—”
“Photography,” Gutes chimes in. “And making sure we have a fashion spread.”
Said spread was shot by no less than Daniel Arnold and outfitted by no less than Thom Browne. “It was so chill on set, the vibe was so good,” says Banse of the basketball shoot images. “I think that’s kind of what we were going for in this issue: taking fun very seriously.”
As for the rest of the issue, which is sponsored by the Independent Art Fair, Gutes is willing to reveal just a little: “We have closet tours, which we did with Leah McSweeney of Housewives, but then also this girl Meg, who is on the cover. She has a fashion blog, and is…
“Meg Superstar Princess,” clarifies Banse.
“She’s like a time capsule from 2009: Tumblr, Diet Coke, cigarettes, black eyeliner, so cool. So we did that with her.”
There are also “insider tips from a certain rebooted” TV series and a piece about “somebody who knows somebody,” they wink. It’s all done with a very freewheeling, tongue-in-cheek spirit. Not serious, and definitely not playing by the fashion rules. “That’s the thing in fashion, it can be intimidating,” says Banse. “I think that the way that this issue is going to be presented and the way it’s coming together makes it completely not.”
“Anyone can make a newspaper and anyone can make a fashion magazine,” adds Gutes.
Their DIY mentality is completely in line with fashion’s new trend pipeline, too. Culture is unquestionably trickling up, from Depop, TikTok, and other Gen Z platforms. No longer do Gossip Girl characters dress like fashion editors; fashion editors want to dress with the unstudied aplomb of Gossip Girl 2.0 teens. No one wants to seem too rich, too polished, or too right—the veneer of perfection puts you at risk of cancellation or worse: being deemed irrelevant and out of touch.
So here’s what Banse and Gutes are deeming so right now: Banse is into basics, early Prada, and low-rise vintage D&G pants; Gutes is into ruffles, frills, and anything Rachel Tashjian recommends in Opulent Tips. Both agree, meal-wise, it’s about shrimp cocktail and dessert, and Fashion Week-wise it’s about going to friends’ shows (Saint Sintra and Carter Young), a couple parties, and maybe trying to crash a few more just for fun.
As for what’s in store for The Drunken Canal, they want to move to being quarterly, but aren’t over-planning. “I’d rather just keep thinking that it’s a little newspaper that we printed 100 of for our friends. I hope that kind of awareness of its roots, what it physically is, keeps it true and authentic,” says Banse. “I just want to keep it fun and free and let it be a place for us to say shit that we should not say.”