I always knew I wanted to be the editor of a magazine.
I just didn’t expect to be writing my first editor’s letter at twenty-one.
Magazines are strange and wonderful things. They capture a moment in culture, freeze it in time, and quietly shape how people think about the world around them.
French Press Global begins with that intention.
There are two ways to start a magazine.
The first is dipping your toe in the water and waiting for the right time.
The second is to jump in headfirst and trust in your vision, ideas and stories you choose to bring to life.
FPG belongs firmly to the second category.
I am writing this letter at twenty-one, which is not the traditional age at which one is handed the responsibility of shaping a publication. Magazines, after all, are institutions. They hold ideas, arguments, reputations, and occasionally a small cultural rebellion or two.
The fact that I get to sign this page as the Executive Editor-in-Chief of one is still a little surreal.
I’m aware this is not the usual age to be writing an editor’s letter—it’s almost unheard of. But good magazines, much like good ideas, rarely arrive at the expected time.
For as long as I can remember, I wanted to be the editor of a magazine. Not because of the glamour people imagine comes with it, but because magazines have always been places where ideas meet culture in public. They are where fashion can speak to politics, where design meets diplomacy, where beauty becomes science, and where art quietly negotiates with power. News rooted in real time society, but meant for leisurely reading—in lobbies, spa sessions, airplanes and on summery beach days. And I’ve always been a sucker for oxymorons.
Somewhere along the way, lifestyle journalism lost a little of its curiosity. What was once reported with care slowly became lighter, faster, and often more promotional than editorial. The kind of stories we once returned to in glossy magazines, thoughtful pieces you could read twice and still find something new, now feel almost mythical.
It became faster. Louder. More obedient to algorithms than curiosity. Stories started to look suspiciously alike. Everyone seemed to be saying the same thing, only slightly rearranged.
French Press Global begins with the belief that this does not have to be the case.
This magazine exists because Chaiti Narula, our founder and Editorial Director, believed that there was still space for thoughtful, rigorous cultural journalism. Her decision to trust me with the editorial direction of this publication is something I carry with immense gratitude and an even greater sense of responsibility.
Trust in media is rare. Trust placed in a young editor even more so.
For our inaugural issue, I wanted the stories to ask better questions.
Not what happened, but why it matters.
You will read about the politics of fashion, the economics of concerts, the ethics of artificial intelligence in creative industries, the invisible labour behind sustainability, and the complicated relationship between identity, aesthetics, and power.
Because the things we casually call “lifestyle” are rarely casual at all.
They are the things that shape taste, influence decisions, signal status, and quietly define how societies understand themselves.
French Press Global is a women-led media company operating across two wings: editorial and brand architecture. One investigates culture. The other understands how culture moves through brands, institutions, and industries. Between the two sits a simple conviction: stories deserve attention.
Between the two sits a simple conviction: stories deserve attention.
We live in a time where content is consumed faster than it can be thought about. Scroll, swipe, react, repeat. Somewhere in that cycle we forgot that culture is meant to be experienced slowly. Considered. Argued over.
This magazine is our attempt to bring that rhythm back.
Will one publication change the way the world consumes content?
Probably not overnight.
But every shift begins with someone deciding that the status quo is a little too comfortable.
If French Press Global can do anything, I hope it reminds readers that journalism about art, fashion, design, beauty, music, and culture can still be intelligent, uncompromising, and unapologetically rigorous.
And if it occasionally makes you pause, think, disagree, or look at something differently, then we’ve done our job.
Magazines, like ideas, grow over time. They gather voices, disagreements, curiosity and conviction.
Welcome to French Press Global.
This is only the beginning.
Warmly,
Sia Sethi
Executive Editor-in-Chief
