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Managing Director of Condé Nast Britain and former President of Condé Nast International, Nicholas Colebridge has been at the forefront of publishing for three decades, printing some of the world’s most well-known titles, including Vogue, GQ, Architectural Digest and many more. Following his time at The Evening Standard as a columnist, where he won the ‘Young Journalist of the Year’ title at the British Press Awards, he was appointed as Editorial Director at Condé Nast Britain, and was later promoted to Managing Director in 1991. Today, Coleridge is also Chairman of the Victoria & Albert Museum, which, as he points out to the Financial Times’ Jo Ellison, is “not that different” to being a publisher. Taking a closer look at the interview, we highlight five things we learn from Coleridge’s Lunch with the FT.

Nicholas Coleridge (via Condé Nast Britain)

On the coveted corner seat at La Caprice:

They dine at his usual restaurant, La Caprice, which comes to no surprise to the staff, as they instinctively serve him his regular ‘Bull Shot’. Sipping on consomme and vodka, the two started off their conversation about the restaurant’s sought-after corner table, which, according to him, has seen the company of a long list of eminent names, specifically the Princess of Wales, author and politician Jeffrey Archer, art dealer Leslie Waddington and now, him – in that order.

 

 

On how he met his wife:

Colebridge met his wife Georgia, who he has been married to for thirty years, when she was an intern at Tatler. The start of the courtship with his spouse, “energy healer” and writer, began when he went to India to accidentally bump into her, and the rest is history. The couple have four children and seven godchildren, two of which are British supermodels Cara Delevingne and Edie Campbell.

 

 

On the similarities of being a publisher and chair of a cultural institution:

Currently the Director of the Victoria & Albert Museum, Colebridge describes his role as being “quite similar to that of publishers,” and that instead of spending his weekends analysing weekly figures from magazine titles, it’s now come down to analysing footfall from the Museum, of which the V&A ranks in the sixth position, according to him, after The British Museum and Tate Modern in London.

 

 

On how print media has thrived in the digital age:

The relationship between old and new media has been a popular topic. Regarding the relatively recent and rapid growth of online publications, Coleridge comments that established publishing houses “still have that amount of leverage in the publishing industry” and that they still hold the reins. The future of these magazines, in his opinion, seems fairly optimistic. He tells Ellison, “I don’t think they will sell as many as they did. But I think that they will continue.”

On the finer things in life:

One might assume that being a president of a highly renowned company like Condé Nast may equate to living a lavish lifestyle but for Colebridge, he takes pride in not being extravagant. In fact, he goes on to share about one of his greatest indulgences that took place during Christmas, where he turned up the heating on his pool to 97°F. He has never yearned for a yacht and has never been very interested in “bling things”. He considers himself as lucky and describes the value of the friendships he has made as superseding material things.

 

Words by Trishna Goklani | Feature image: Le Caprice (Photo by James McDonald via Martin Brudnizki Design Studio)

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