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 is the Revolutions issue, ‘a term from the past, associated with violence, political failures, and lost illusions‘, but also ‘a duty, an impossible mission‘ entrusted to today's generation, as editor Oliver Zahm writes.
Accompanying the usual chunk of photography, interviews and more is Purple Residence #1—a smaller, pale pink booklet documenting Purple's eponymous artist in residence program (situated on the third floor of Le Corbusier's Unité d'habitation no less!) Each edition, filled with art and photography produced during the residency, pairs an artist with a brand. First up, Californian artist Peter Shire meets Italian fashion house Pucci.