photo : Jennifer Link
hair : Erin Moser
makeup : Leane Steck
interview : Zach Rose

As an original member of Auxiliary Magazine, Luke Copping’s background in photography, marketing, and popular culture helps Auxiliary achieve the success that it enjoys. Luke’s unique approach to beauty, style, and character photography lends an aesthetic of quirk and dynamism that is entirely his own. An internationally recognized photographer, Luke’s style continues to evolve and his contributions to Auxiliary continue to lend content that is both exciting in nature and provocative in its styling.

What do you do at Auxiliary Magazine?

What don’t I do? As the Associate Editor I work on all aspects of the magazine. On top of writing and photographing several articles each issue, I work on design, marketing, editing, and advertising issues, I also work in article and shoot production, and I work closely with the rest of the editorial staff on the direction of each issue. I also manage a lot of the blog content. I’m sort of the jack of all trades, I go where the work needs to be done and tend to fill a lot of different spots on the magazine’s roster, as well as providing content as needed to fill holes in our issue layouts.

As an individual utilizing several different roles with Auxiliary, which do you find to be the most rewarding and why?

Its all good, and all an outlet for what I do. Whether I’m creating imagery or writing for the magazine, or launching a new marketing idea or plan. I think too many artists have a poor concept of business. I like to pride myself on having the skills to do both. You can’t run a successful venture like this without being both creative and business savvy. That’s why I enjoy working with the team here so much, they take it as seriously as I do, and truly want this venture to succeed.

How does Auxiliary Magazine influence local fashion markets? Non-local?

I’m not concerned with us influencing markets as a whole. I think that Auxiliary, at least in terms of my perception, is much more about pushing people to create their own styles, rather than being mere slaves to the fashions we show. I dread us ever becoming a magazine like Gothic Beauty, one which I feel simply regurgitates the latest pseudo alternative trends and uniforms that you see influence the club scene. I think our readers are more intelligent than that, have a wider range of interests and don’t need to be told what to wear, merely shown what is out there so they can make up their own minds. I try to introduce elements of fashion and style from a variety of backgrounds that other magazines either tend to deride or ignore simply because these aesthetics and ideas do not fit into what I feel are the small and narrowly defined categories that it seems these magazines adhere to. High fashion runway shows, vintage and thrift, DIY, street fashion, and elements of the South American, Eastern European, and Asian fashion scenes are all present throughout our editorials and blog entries. I think the most important element in developing an alternative fashion magazine is to absolutely NOT play to the stereotypes. These are bad trends and poorly thought out fashion ideas that propagate within the mob mentality of several alternative countercultures. I have no time for elitist tribes that espouse individuality while only allowing social creativity within a limited scope. We owe our readers more than that.

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