Dream Big, an annual broadsheet for cultured insiders

By

Godfrey Deeny

Published
Mar 30, 2021

Just when you thought it was getting very tricky to develop new magazines, along comes Dream Big with a whole new concept.

 
The brainchild of Bulgarian painter Oda Jaune and show producer Robin Scott-Lawson, Dream Big is an entirely black-and-white title focused on the need for reverie.
 
The magazine, or mini broadsheet, is so indie that it doesn’t even have a masthead. Nor even an actual address listed anywhere in its 84 pages. What it does have is a hyper creative and eclectic team of contributors - fashion icons like designer Vivienne Westwood, actress and indie rocker Lou Doillon and international 'it'-girl Hikari Yokoyama.

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While Westwood writes about ecology; Doillon composed a song, 'We are the Music Makers,' and Yokoyama distils on pure emptiness.

“The idea was born in the middle of 2020, when the space for important ideas and thinking out of box was getting very small. When the news was taken over by ugly facts and more bad news. For us, dreams are very important and offer a way out of our current moment,” explained Jaune, whose own contribution is a sketch of a mythical Kinnara, half-man and half-swan.

 
Other boldface-name contributors include London’s smartest curator – Hans Ulrich Obrist, who writes about what people still hope to achieve in their life; listing 10 personal ambitions; environmentalist activist Cyrill Gutsch, who left his signature block reading glasses on the page; and Scottish site-specific sculptor Robert Montgomery.
 
All printed on 100% recycled paper, with the author’s name on each left-hand page and their ideas on the right.
 
“People are so bogged down now by negative news, so something more artistic and creative is important. We thought that in lockdown, we can reach people by putting something in their hands,” added Scott-Lawson, whose production company, My Beautiful City, has a client roster including Westwood, Matthew Williamson, Acne and Ralph Lauren.

Filmmaker Richard Robinson, who has collaborated with Fendi, Robert Plant and Nicholas Kirkwood, organized the poetically sparse typography.
 
It’s certainly a diverse selection of dreamers: like poet, actress and Dolce  & Gabbana catwalker Greta Bellamacina; German author Eckhart Nickel; Italian novelist Ortensia Visconti; Robin’s son Otto; and Ida Immendorff, Oda’s daughter from her marriage to the late great German artist Jörg Immendorff. A highly happening student at Central Saint Martins, she sketches some wonderful tarot cards.

 
The duo – who each chose 20 contributors for the debut - are already planning a next issue for autumn, “but maybe in a new color each issue, possibly dark green next,” adds Oda.
 
Like all dreams, Dream Big is free. Hundreds of copies were mailed out to ingenious folk of its debut print run of 1,000, while Robin and Oda even hand them out to people in London parks, when they are not down on his farm in Devon.
 
“It causes a great reaction, enormous smiles and wonderment when you give them to people sitting on park benches,” laughs Scott-Lawson.
 
“Since everywhere was closed, we had to mail Dream Big or give it away. But Alex Eagle is going to put in her hotels and 180 Strand,” he explains, referring to the tastemaker, retail guru and landlord of London Fashion Week.