Purple Diary

[September 5 2017]

PURPLE 25TH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE IS OUT NOW!

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of Purple, we present twenty-five special covers starring Chloë Sevigny, Stella Tennant, Eva Herzigová, Anna Cleveland, Grace Hartzel, Sky Ferreira,Michèle Lamy, Tamy Glauser,Jamie Bochert, Guinevere Van Seenus, Anja Rubik, Kiki Willems, Paul Hameline, Alek Wek, Rila Fukushima, Slick Woods, Saskia de Brauw, Susan Cianciolo shot by Anders Edstrom, Blommers and Schumm, Casper Serjensen, Colin Dodgson, Inez and Vinoodh, Juergen Teller, Katja Rahlwes, Olivier Zahm, Pierre-Ange Carlotti, Robi Rodriguez, Sandy Kim, Takashi Homma, Terry Richardson, Viviane Sassen, Wolfgang Tillmas, and Jeremy Everett.  

Purple Fashion Magazine issue 28 also includes interviews with photographer Wolfgang Tillmans, fashion designer Haider Ackermann, iconic American artist Richard Prince… and a special edition Purple Book and Cover by brilliant multidisciplinary artist Paul McCarthy. 

Today we present the Purple 25th anniversary Special Cover featuring Saskia de Brauw wearing the Calvin Klein 205W39NYC first collection, shot by Colin Dodgson and styled by Vanessa Reid. 

“Twenty-five years already! It went so fast! When I created Purple with Elein Fleiss and a group of artists in Paris in 1992, starting a magazine was not an option: we had to do it, no matter what! With no money, using a home computer, a Macintosh 512K, we stayed up late at night, squatting a friend’s gallery to use the computers and printer… The urgency was to shape our lives, to do it for us and an emerging generation coming after one that seemed so much more powerful: the ’80s.

My generation earned worldwide success, so we don’t need a magazine anymore. It’s been years now that younger generations don’t use magazines to express themselves — at least not the way we did back in 1992. Social media now generally satisfy the need for images, contacts, and creativity. Publishing a magazine has become so expensive… An actual print object like Purple is a luxury item, which is why new alternative magazines don’t last more than a few years, are often bought, or simply disappear.

Doing a luxury magazine today is one of the paradoxes of the Instagram era, when such things cost nothing… A magazine is not an ego trip… It’s a collective work by a group of creative people who believe in the artistic value of the print media and share a similar vision. (Thanks to all of them!) Every image, every single text, the choice of paper, the layout, even the choice of typefaces matters. Everything matters… Purple is made to last. Purple is made to capture a moment every season… In this period of global Internet obsession and digital amnesia, I think that means something”— says Editor-in-Chief Olivier Zahm in his editor’s letter.

 

Photo by Colin Dodgson

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