Purple #43: Tokyo Diary
240 x 325 mm, 462 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 Spring/Summer 2025 issue is Purple's comprehensive love letter to Japan; framed as a ‘Tokyo Diary’, every few pages introduces a new key figure, cult artist, cultural movement, or fragment of the country's creative scene and history. The cover sports a new typeface inspired by experimental 60s photography magazine Provoke—part of collection of fetish mags on page 98.
Highlights include Róisín Tapponi's history of erotic pink eiga films; photography from iconic photographer Daido Moriyama; Mei Kawajiri's radical nail art; plus interviews with Wim Wenders, author Ryoko Sekiguchi and i-D Japan's editorial director Kazumi Asamura Hayashi. With plenty more in between and 12 covers to choose from.