Purple Magazine
— S/S 2015 issue 23

Edito

Kim Gordon appeared in Purple’s very first issue, in the autumn of 1992. Later, she modeled for several of our fashion stories. We did a long interview with her five years ago, toward the end of her career as the lead singer and bassist of Sonic Youth, a band that inspired us for years. This is her first Purple cover, on the occasion of her autobiography, Girl in a Band.

Kim exemplifies creativity, radicality, and “experimental jet set.” She also embodies something of the feminine-masculine duality we’ve woven through this issue — in my conversation with Rick Owens and Shayne Oliver, in the interview with Jonathan Anderson, in Maurizio Cattelan’s Q&A with women artists, and throughout all the fashion stories.

The portrait of Kim on the cover is an outtake from the campaign I shot for Iceberg. But I didn’t choose her because of any advertising deal. It’s simply because she incarnates the spirit of Purple: an indivisible blend of concept and style born from the obsessions and dreams that many of us share. She’s a musician, a writer, a painter, and a New York fashion icon whose style remains the same onstage and off.

Far from the rock-girl cliché, she never tried to be a glamorous star or the anti-heroine of grunge. She is her graceful, discrete self, even in the chaos of sonic distortion. She’s won respect by remaining true to her artistic nature — strong, simple, clean, a magnetic energy whether she wears a t-shirt or a girly dress. A girl in a band, yes, but who has always emanated something more than just feminine power.

— OLIVIER ZAHM

[Table of contents]

S/S 2015 issue 23

Table of contents

purple EDITO

purple NEWS

purple BEST OF THE SEASON

purple INTERVIEW

purple FASHION WOMEN

purple FASHION MEN

purple DOCUMENT

purple BEAUTY

purple LOVE

purple TRAVEL

purple SEX

purple PHILOSOPHY

purple TRAVEL

purple NIGHT

purple STORY

purple VISUAL ESSAY

© Purple Institute

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