Purple #46: Peace
240 x 325 mm, 476 pages (hardbound)
Biannual
Paris, France (English-language)
Editor-in-chief and creative director: Olivier Zahm
Designer 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 biannuals. 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 Fall/Winter 2026–27 issue, themed ‘Peace’, explores art as an imaginative arena for contemplating and envisioning an alternative to the polarity of the present. Rather than proposing ‘a single answer’, editor-in-chief Olivier Zahm writes in his opening editorial, the issue ‘sketches a direction. Or several that already exist in people, in artworks, in images, and in the conversations gathered for you in these pages.’ As ever, the issue features a plethora of covers to choose from, including artwork by Robert Indiana, Precious Okoyomon and Judith Bernstein, as well as models adorned in looks from many of the major fashion houses’ latest Cruise 2027 and FW26/27 collections.
Inside, discover conversations with the likes of actress and director Natasha Lyonne, conceptual and performance artist Marina Abramović, photographer Mark Borthwick, cook and writer Jago Rackham, and fashion designers Pierpaolo Piccioli and Rachel Scott; a portfolio of Parisian street portraits by Juergen Teller, showcasing the ‘Best of the Season’; and reprinted artwork and texts by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Jenny Holzer, Bruce Nauman, Hilma af Klint, Harmony Korine, Judith Butler, and many more.