In this issue you’ll find interviews with two French icons: Catherine Deneuve, a legend of French cinema and a conscious but nonmilitant feminist, and Hélène Cixous, a highly respected author, philosopher, and critic, and a central figure in contemporary feminist theory.
The standard cliché is that fashion is anti-feminist, that it objectifies women with its superficial commercialism, that it’s an industry designed to alienate women by reducing their identities to their appearance. This is as one-sided as saying that fashion empowers women, that it helps women to liberate themselves, dress for themselves and speak for themselves, and that it can push the boundaries of gender stereotyping.
Anything can happen in fashion. Fashion can be feminist and anti-feminist at the same time. This open contradiction and permanent opposition can lean toward progressive ways of representing women or, on the contrary, toward regressive social stereotypes that instrumentalize women.
By raising this controversial issue, I’m not trying to convince you that Purple is far more feminist than other fashion magazines. You can decide that for yourself. This issue is, however, a visual experiment. We wondered what kind of fashion stories could intentionally be created with feminism in mind — the multiple facets of feminism today — without being didactic, political, or simply boring.
— OLIVIER ZAHM
[Table of contents]
Night Pictures
by Olivier Zahm, Stéphane Feugère, and Brad Elterman with a portfolio by Kate Simon
by Thomas Lenthal
by Jeffrey Deitch
by Arnaud Viviant
by Angelo Flaccavento
by John Jefferson Selve
by Mehdi Belhaj Kacem
by Olivier Zahm
by Sven Schumann
by Olivier Zahm
by Glenn O'Brien
by Olivier Zahm
by Olivier Zahm
by Robi Rodriguez
by Camille Bidault-Waddington
by Petra Collins
text by Paul Preciado
by Alex Antitch
by Juergen Teller
by Casper Sejersen
by Benjamin Alexander Huseby
by Theo Wenner
text by Karley Sciortino
by Sandy Kim
by Andreas Larsson
by Katja Rahlwes
by Giasco Bertoli
by Gianni Oprandi
by Olivier Zahm
by Stephan Crasneanscki
by Olivier Zahm and Donatien Grau
by Hugo Tillman