Aude Revier is a fashion journalist and author, she was the long-time editor in chief of Air France Magazine, published by Gallimard, before returning to her travels for various publications, including the Journal du Dimanche and the Louis Vuitton City Guides. Whether she's off to a ranch in Alberta or embarking on a Tahitian spree that lasts until the middle of the night, her bag always comes back full of curiosities,improvised herbariums and Polaroids.

We spoke to Aude about her debut publication PASSAGER a travel magazine like a book. a travel book like a magazine.

PASSAGER opens its pages wide to all forms of travel, mobile or immobile, from real movement to escape into the imagination through words, art, fashion, cinema or gastronomy

interview, long format, portfolio, portrait, poem, report... PASSAGER lends itself to all forms of storytelling

Enjoy our interview with Aude Revier

What sparked your joy of travel and exploration 

Travel and exploration came up naturally in my professional life. I started in fashion and used to travel like everybody does, to open up my horizons and my mind during my vacation time. Soon after, I started to travel for work, and then to travel to write for work, and then to work as a writing traveler... That has changed everything. As soon as you have to explore a place to reach for something, with a specific goal, the journey has a different taste. A livelier one. You meet people you would have never imagined to discuss with, you learn many things, the first ones being respect, tolerance and difference. The emotion of receiving so much from people who trust you is the kind of spark that makes me wake up everyday (and of course bringing back a little jar of honey or marmalade is an incredible way to extend travel at home !). I would add something that has a strong meaning for me and that I identified only recently. Travelling is all about leaving, indeed, but it’s also about coming back home too. This idea of returning, like Odysseus who always dreams about Ithica, only reinforces the sense of travelling.

If you could close your eyes and transport anywhere, where would that be 

This question rings a particular bell to me as the first person who mentioned this mental landscape is my dear friend Elise, more than 10 years ago. At that time, I was about to take a new job as the head of Air France magazine, at Gallimard Publishing house in Paris, and all my interviews for the job happened to be while in Sydney as I was writing the Louis Vuitton City Guide on this very city. My mind started to get excited about this Air France Magazine project, I was thinking of new sections we could create in the magazine and Elise asked me this very simple and minimalist question : what is the place where you would transport yourself to feel untroubled. At that time, an image popped up - the white concrete bench of my little seaside house, on the bask coast in France, when the sun enters in the living room through the windows and draws some square shadows on the white wood floor. Not a sound, just the sensation of this empty space, like a totally white page. This mental image never left me, (especially when I need to calm down during flight turbulence!). But I have now a second mental landscape that comes very close to the white and soft light of the little fisherman's house in France, it comes with the sounds of a wood cabin high on a mountain near Teahupo'o, in French Polynesia. I hear the enchanted songs of birds around, the roosters waking up the villages when the first orange lights rip the dark black morning sky, the breeze of the wind in the giant leaves of the forest, I see the splashes of red, yellow and pink of the flowers, all the shades of greens that seem to wrap us like a reassuring cocoon. 

It creates a fantastic unreal location, made of silence and stillness near the Atlantic ocean, tangled up with sensory memories of sounds and impressionist colours on an island lost in the Pacific ocean.

How does imagination play a role in your daily life 

I don't feel I'm mobilizing imagination in the sense of using an imaginary world to escape from something. But if you define imagination as a way of choosing your own pace to think of things, then I would say it's a way of seeing the world. Taking time to observe every little sign, every little creature, every little detail. The first ladybirds just emerged in the garden a few days ago. It filled my heart with joy and hope and I don't know how much time I spent on the floor looking for them. Passager is all about that. Inviting readers to allow themselves to walk their own way, against the flow. It's important for me to provide readers with a quiet place, where people can be united through a common vision of beauty and humanity. There is no need of travelling very far. Just allow yourself to see your world with new glasses when going out, just at the corner of the street. The travel starts as soon as you're present in the moment and place yourself in a position of real or intellectual mobility.

In one word, how did Australia make you feel when you travelled there

  One word is an impossible ask to summarise my experience with Australia. All my senses were awakened. From this incredible light to the high scale food scene, from the infinite landscapes to its moving roots and history. Australia is always here in a hidden recess of my head,  knowing it's a place I can go back and feel peaceful and just well. Swimming in the Bondi Icebergs swimming pool could be a great definition of happiness.

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