Purple #41: The Essence of Fashion Issue

240 x 325 mm, 400+ pages, hardbound

Biannual

Paris, France (English-language)

Editor-in-chief and creative director: Olivier Zahm

Design and art director: Gianni Oprandi

Purple has morphed a fair bit since its 1992 inception as a rejoinder to all that late-80s airbrushed glamour and fashion fromage. The significantly smaller Purple Prose gained some serious heft and took the fashion bull by the horns in the ensuing decades, dropping the ‘prose’ and growing not just in terms of scale and pages, but in its significance among the heavyweight bi-annuals. Now, 30 years on, the magazine has established itself as a modern classic.

This is the Essence of Fashion issue, covering the A—Z of ‘the system of fashion and its profound influence on art, sexuality, gender, politics, cinema and celebrity culture’. There’s architecture, exoskeleton, fabrics and forms, narcissism, youth and our favourite—magazines, in which editor Olivier Zahm chats to indie mag royalty Mel Ottenberg, formerly of Purple and current editor-in-chief at Interview.