Three years, story by story.
We published our first story in 2023. Today, 183,000 readers return every month — most of them arrived because someone shared a story, which is the only way we have ever grown.
The method has not changed: fewer, better stories. Long interviews, conducted across time zones. Photography treated with the same care as the pieces it captures.
We owe that growth to the designers who gave us their time before we had earned it, and to readers who keep giving us theirs.
The people behind VOL
A 36-person team of editors, photographers, producers, and fact-checkers — people who would rather do one thing exceptionally than ten things adequately.
Milestones
VOL began with the designers who agreed to be interviewed before we had an audience to offer them. Those first conversations — over video calls, across time zones — set the pattern for everything since. We remember exactly who they were. The first article drew 41 views. Forty-one is our lucky number, framed in our office to this day.
The interview series grew into the center of the magazine. Goldsmiths, founders, and stylists gave us hours of their time over long video calls — bench tours by webcam, sketches held up to the lens. The generosity of those conversations built this magazine.
The month we crossed 100,000 monthly readers, we held the first VOL Awards — an evening honoring the season’s finest work. It felt right that our first big night was about other people’s craft, not ours. Managing to secure an interview with David Yurman was another memorable part of that journey.
From those first video calls to a 36-person studio, with editors, photographers, producers, and fact-checkers working together, and 183,000 readers around the world. The bar stays where our readers — and our subjects — have set it.
Every door that opens to us opens because you read the work. We intend to keep earning that — story by story.