Snooping around the beautiful home and hats of a very intriguing publisher with Freunde von Freunden

Benji, you had us fooled. When we covered the first issue of Latvian, bilingual “bookazine” Benji Knewman, we couldn’t work out “whether Benji’s a real life contributor or a fictional construct created to lure us in.” Lure us in he did, and boy did we enjoy the myth, later discussing how wonderful the design of the third issue was.

But like the Wizard of Oz, all isn’t as it seems once you peer behind the curtain. Or more precisely, the very carefully placed curtains, ornaments and shoes that form the meticulously constructed interiors of the real Benji Knewman, a girl named Agnese Kleina who lives in a “museum-like” apartment in Riga, Latvia.

Freunde von Freunden snooped about in her beautiful home, speaking to the site’s Jack Mahoney about her life as a fashion blogger, and why her magazine venture is an important one for Latvia, and its perception of “hipsters.”

“In Latvia, people use the word ‘hipster’ for everything new,” she says. “The local fashion label MAREUNROL’S are familiar with this. They did an interview recently and the headline was ‘we like it that we are not understood.’”

But the magazine has more political nuances running through it, hence its publication in both Latvian and English. “Really, the main language is an international one: human language,” Agnese says. “I want the magazine read because I know the ideas told there are not mine alone. They’re told by many people and are useful for a wide audience.”