A Magazine, Dutch, joe’s, Purple, Self Service, Six and Visionaire are some of the magazines on which the book focusesin order to investigate the functioning of niche periodicalsfounded by groups of people who have cultivateda collaborative dimension and chosen to carry outexperiments in the two-dimensional space of the page.Magazines seen as places of inquiry, means for presentingthe discourse of fashion and nurturing it through thelanguages of art direction, graphic design, photographyand styling. Deeply rooted in the 1990s, they linkthe culture and system of fashion with artistic practices,shining a spotlight on the work of hitherto unknownauthors. The visual essay at the beginning reflects on theperformativity of these publications and, like an exhibitionon the page, brings together the work of six contemporaryphotographers: Benoît Béthume, Elizabeth Bick, Alan Chies,Paolo Di Lucente, Estelle Hanania and Dario Salamone.
This book falls within the broader horizon of the research—carried out by the workgroup of the IUAV University in Venice coordinated by Maria Luisa Frisa and engaged in the study of fashion and its cultures— that is investigating Italian fashion and its stories, publishing, archives, training in fashion design and all the design cultures that come within the scope of this field of study.