Purple #45: New Glamour
240 x 325 mm, 496 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, with the cover sporting a new typeface inspired by experimental 60s photography magazine Provoke.
This Spring/Summer 2026 issue, themed ‘New Glamour’, explores the ever-evolving illusion of glamour—a powerful tool of influence since the dawn of civilisation—tracing its trajectory across popular culture from the late twentieth century to the present day in an attempt to decode its contemporary form. Rather than fuelling a modern obsession with nostalgia, editor Olivier Zham positions the issue as an attempt to tap into glamour’s ‘transformative power… to seduce and disturb, to awaken desire against normalisation and digital hallucination, and to dream again of a cosmic future guided by new stars - or anti-stars.’
Woven throughout the issue, you’ll find a collection of ‘Notes on Glamour’ from the likes of Junya Watanabe, Vaquera, Raul Lopez, Duran Lantink, Dilara Findikoglu and more—a reinterpretation of Susan Sontag’s groundbreaking ‘Notes on Camp’ (an excerpt of which is also printed inside); Jean Baudrillard’s 1979 text ‘Seduction’, which unveils the necessary artifice of the pursuit of desire; and short-form features exploring radical works by Andy Warhol, Marcel Duchamp, Claude Cahun, Barbara Hepworth, Linda Sterling and Richard Prince. Elsewhere, Patti Smith takes lessons from Vogue, Anthony Vaccarello reminisces on ten years at the helm of Saint Laurent, and Olivier interviews legendary Spanish designer Miguel Androver, New York drag artist Christeene Vale, Italian avant-garde filmmaker Francesco Vezzoli and American jewellery designer Betony Vernon.