What really happens behind the scenes of fashion’s most famous covers
Fashion Director Nik Piras reveals the hidden secrets, behind-the-scenes moments, and celebrity truths shaping iconic editorial images today
What really happens behind the polished veneer of fashion images—the ones that shape our collective imagination? And how does one gain access to the hidden conversations, creative tensions, and fleeting human moments behind the scenes? These are the questions at the heart of Dietro le quinte: il mio sguardo su dieci copertine, 10 celebrity di successo, the new book by Nik Piras, Fashion Director at Esquire Italia. Through ten portraits of contemporary icons—from Alessandro Borghi and Dario Argento to Levante, Ghali, Jannik Sinner, Blanco, Willem Dafoe, Mika, Filippo Scotti, and Maurizio Cattelan—Piras opens a door to the intimate, unpredictable, and often vulnerable space where editorial images are born.
The book was presented in Milan on 10 November at Istituto Marangoni’s new campus in Palazzo Turati, Via Meravigli 7, as part of the school’s official programme for BookCity Milano. In a conversation titled Oltre la Cover: Linguaggi e Segreti dell’Immagine Editoriale, Piras was joined by Antonio Mancinelli—editorialist, author, and lecturer in Contemporary Fashion Culture—for a live exploration of how images become cultural artefacts, how fashion language evolves, and what truly defines a cover today. The talk inaugurated a three-part series organised by the institution, dedicated to vision, leadership, and the aesthetics of beauty. The programme continued on 14 November with Leadership: The Power to Influence, featuring author Luigi Drei and recruiting consultant Jacqueline Bonati, and concluded the same day with art historian Isabella Campagnol in a conversation with Maria Pirulli, author of Il Profumo della Bellezza, who explored Leonardo da Vinci’s enduring aesthetic codes—an homage perfectly aligned with the visionary spirit guiding the celebrations for Istituto Marangoni’s 90th anniversary.
Returning to the book itself, Dietro le quinte is far more than a behind-the-scenes diary: it is an inquiry into the tension between artistic intuition and professional craft. Piras reflects on the invisible dynamics that shape a portrait—the trust built on set, the emotional currents, and the creative risks. Each chapter becomes a study of presence and personality: the charisma of Borghi, the unsettling depth of Argento, Levante’s vibrant energy, Ghali’s expressive freedom, Sinner’s determination, Blanco’s irreverence, Dafoe’s elegance, Mika’s magnetism, Scotti’s intensity, and Cattelan’s provocative art.
And yes, Maze35 was there for the book’s presentation—and we’re ready to share everything with you.
Dietro le Quinte by Nik Piras: The Hidden Secrets Behind Fashion’s Most Famous Covers
The talk Oltre la Cover: Linguaggi e Segreti dell’Immagine Editoriale at Istituto Marangoni Milano, brought together Nik Piras—author and Fashion Director at Esquire Italia—and journalist Antonio Mancinelli for what could have just been another conversation about photography, styling, and the mechanics of editorial work. Instead, through a mix of reflection, candour, and gentle irony, it became a mirror for deeper questions: What is the true purpose of a cover? How do you keep it relevant amid inevitable compromises? And, ultimately, what remains of an image once it stops trying to please?
Piras explained that a magazine cover has always been a site of tension—between art and commerce, authenticity and construction, emotion and spectacle. This tension is heightened when the publication is an established, institutional title rather than an independent one. The cover is the reader’s first handshake with the magazine, yet also the final, polished layer of a far more intricate creative process.
“Every cover is an encounter that leaves good scars” – Nik Piras, Fashion Director at Esquire Italia and author of Dietro le quinte
Behind every meticulously crafted image is what Piras described as a real laboratory of intentions: the decision to spotlight a particular face, the fashion director’s sensibility, the photographer’s vision, and ongoing dialogues with the brand or brands dressing the subject—conversations that help shape not just the cover, but the entire cover story. Increasingly, these exchanges include negotiations with the celebrity’s personal stylist: many public figures today entrust the whole architecture of their public image to these professionals, who effectively hold the helm of their client’s visual narrative.
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Amidst all these intersecting agendas lies a creative urgency: the need to articulate something that reaches beyond perfection, beyond surface appeal, and towards a more resonant truth.
“When you work with brands like Gucci or Bulgari,” Nik Piras explained, “compromise is part of the game.” Yet it is within this very friction—between creative freedom and commercial constraint—that an image can still breathe, still surprise, and retain its emotional truth.
The Surprising Truth About Celebrity Portraits: Imperfection as Art
The focus shifted to a recurring challenge in visual storytelling: capturing truth beyond perfection.
There comes a point in every creative process when beauty alone is no longer enough. Fashion, media, and visual communication are awash with flawless imagery—perfectly filtered, impeccably lit, and ready to vanish with a single swipe. Yet true aesthetic honesty often emerges in the smallest fractures: a smile that arrives a beat too late, a pose that slips out of alignment, a gaze that drifts beyond direction.
Nik Piras calls this the “happy accident”—that unplanned instant when a spontaneous gesture or minor imperfection reveals something profoundly human. One of his most striking examples is the now-famous dLui shoot with Blanco, awkwardly balancing with an oversized greyhound—an image that resisted polish, embraced vulnerability, and ultimately captured truth over control.
“It’s the image that surprises you,” commented Piras, “the one you didn’t expect but instantly recognise as real.” In an era obsessed with flawlessness, imperfection has become a new language: subtle, subversive, and undeniably alive.
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Beyond Pretty: How Modern Magazine Covers Are Reinventing Visual Storytelling
Now more than ever, images must learn to slow down—both in their own pace and in the way they compel viewers to linger. They should become spaces for reflection, not just fleeting acts of exposure. The cover—whether perched on a newsstand or slipping by on your Instagram feed—can no longer be simply a visual surface; it must carry meaning beyond mere display.
In a world flooded with billions of images, the real challenge is to be truly seen. To achieve that, images must have substance, provoke thought, and perhaps even raise questions.
“An image shouldn’t convince; it should make you think” – Antonio Mancinelli, journalist and author
During the talk Oltre la Cover: Linguaggi e Segreti dell’Immagine Editoriale at Istituto Marangoni Milano, Mancinelli underlined this principle: “An image shouldn’t convince; it should make you think.” It is a radical call for fashion photography to reclaim cultural consciousness—to speak in ideas rather than just poses, and to offer content that resonates beyond the frame.
Why Editorial Images Must Preserve Depth and Complexity
The conversation was refreshingly candid, touching on several of the industry’s most critical challenges, especially the fragility of the visual. Today, the line between advertising and editorial imagery is thinner than ever, and every image risks dissolving into sameness in an algorithm-driven landscape.
Yet it is precisely for these reasons that editorial imagery retains a quiet resilience—a duty to safeguard complexity. Its role is to reveal what cannot be instantly consumed. To embrace ambiguity. To give shape to uncertainty. To remind us that fashion—and aesthetics more broadly—can still provoke questions, rather than merely adorn.
The cover is no longer simply the face of a magazine; it has become its voice. And, like any honest voice, it dares to be imperfect.
When Celebrities Drop the Mask: Revealing the Human Side of Editorial Photography
So, what remains of the editorial image today? This question lingered after the conversation between Nik Piras and Antonio Mancinelli at Istituto Marangoni Milano’s new campus, part of the school’s official programme for BookCity Milano.
Perhaps Dietro le quinte—or Beyond the Cover—is precisely this: a space where the image sheds its mask and becomes vision, dialogue, and emotion. A space where the photographer listens as much as they direct, exercising nuance and sensitivity; the fashion director or stylist steps into the role of a thoughtful author, and the subject ceases to be an icon, reclaiming their identity as a person with a public image.
When a celebrity’s portrait—actor, singer, artist, or director—stops striving to meet expectations, it is no longer just an object; it becomes an experience: a fragment of reality suspended between light and thought, revealing not only who we aspire to be, but who we truly are. Perhaps this is the ultimate power of imagery today: not simply to showcase beauty, but to recognise truth.
Agnese Pasquinelli
Editor, Milano