Interest in contemporary art has grown enormously in recent years. One of the reasons it has is artists’ increasing collaboration with the fashion world. Connections between art and fashion have never been stronger or closer than in 2008. Most interesting to me, within the context of Purple Fashion, is not the commercial aspect of this phenomenon, but the fact that artists are willing to share the stage with fashion, either by creating designs or by working with designers (as Richard Prince has with Marc Jacobs for Louis Vuitton).
That’s why the cover of this summer issue presents a collaboration by fashion photographer Mario Sorrenti and artist Rita Ackermann, and why I chose to have Terence Koh’s personal collection of women’s clothing photographed, and to include myself in the story. But fashion people can also see life artistically. Karl Lagerfeld’s panoramic shots of the Park of Versailles capture a dark side of this historic site, and Harmony Korine’s casual modeling of Marc Jacobs’s collection has all the visual charisma of his films.
Artists who have a radical fashion sense can give it added meaning, as Dan Colen does in the series of pictures photographed by Terry Richardson we present in this issue. Artists have a way of looking extreme without seeming extravagant or outrageous. I love that. After all, it’s not just fashion design that’s interesting, but the way people wear their clothes. Changing a way of dressing can change a way of thinking. An outfit that transforms one man or woman can quickly interest others, and perhaps even many others. Today, people desperately look for political antidotes to the apocalypse we seem to be nearing. I’m reminded of John Lennon’s song “God” the conclusion of which is beautiful: you have to believe in yourself. Personally, I don’t believe in God, and I don’t believe in Democracy. I just believe in fashion and in art. And even more so in the erotic combination of them.
— OLIVIER ZAHM
[Table of contents]
by Olivier Zahm and Olympia Le-Tan
by Olivier Zahm
by Olivier Zahm
by Bill Powers
by Eko Sato
by Simon Liberati
by Mario Sorrenti
by Mark Borthwick
by Juergen Teller
by Richard Bush
by Magnus Unnar
by Karl Lagerfeld
by Jack Pierson
by Max Farago
by Magnus Unnar
by Juergen Teller
by Bill Powers
by Terry Richardson
by Glenn O'Brien
by Terry Richardson
by Jeff Rian
by Karl Lagerfeld
