Purple #39: The New York 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 classic.

This is the New York issue, another hefty hardback (with a glossy embossed dust jacket to boot), celebrating the city through the eyes of a new generation of artists, designers and writers that are defining it today. 

But, as the first of a series of New York Stories is aptly titled: what is New York? A state of mind? The most expensive city in the world? ‘A Warholian city that maintains faith in art as a transformative force’? Journey through over 400 pages and a plethora of cover stars to find out.