About The Flâneur Issue

As walking is human’s first independent act and moving your body into space the first action you take in the world, I wanted this first issue to have this sense of movement, of beginnings.

In one of the first paragraphs of his essay “Walking”, H.D. Thoreau explains the dual and alternative worlds surrounding the word sauntering: on one side, the word derives from beggars who needed money in order to go to the holy land, the sainte-terre. Others would link the word to sans terre, without land. Which lead to the idea of not having a particular place or home, therefore being at home everywhere.

No matter where you are going, there is one constant truth and thought linked to the act of walking, which is having to move forward in order to let life happen to you. And so I explored this act through the words and images of someone whose profession is built around the act of walking: Bottega Veneta’s footwear designer Emmanuel Ryngaert. I also took the time to go on a personal walk around Oaxaca, in Mexico, to discover its culinary and artisanal beauties.