Love, sex, youth, body, death, future. When we started working on this issue, when we faced the blank page that precedes any new venture, we did it as a way to get immersed in the depths of our most recurrent obsessions – those that motivate us, torment us and make us passionate. As the issue started shaping itself, we realized it was an issue about beauty. In other words, about how we seek for beauty in those obsessions that keep chasing us along our lifetime. And also, about the way in which beauty, the constant quest for beauty, is our eternal obsession.
The beautiful images by Mia-Jane Harris, thanks to which the author could get over the turbulent idea of death, or the dissected women that Ji Yeo portraits after surgery, prove to be not so different. Both artists force us to stare at a work that provokes a similar strange, bizarre feeling in our reaction: we never imagined that a corpse could get to look so beautiful. And, definitely, at least on this side of the world, it is still hard to understand why young girls are undergoing such massive and agressive processes of plastic surgery. A process that, truth is, will make them able to meet face to face in the mirror with the beauty that nature did not offer. Not a matter of better or worse, just a way to fit in the aesthetic canon of such oriental societies.
It is acknowledged that what we consider beautiful is a movable concept, a definition that mutates throughout centuries, and we are not very sure on what basis that mutation is conceived. In such a sense, we are the witnesses of an interesting redefinition of aesthetic codes that is inclined towards the blurrification of genres, a process that allows the trans phenomena to shine bright. We discuss transgenre and fashion with the actress and model Hari Nef, who will be starring in the upcoming season of the show Transparent. We also discuss fashion with Demna Gvasalia, who managed to get all eyes on Vetements after only four seasons of work.
But as mentioned above, this is an issue about beauty. Isn’t that what the photographer Gary Boas has been trying to capture for fifty years? His work, published in two different books, Starstruck and Celebrity, is a magnificent compendium of images that celebrate the beauty and glamour of stardom both in music and cinema. As a young boy, facing the impossibility of becoming one of those stars, Gary decided to become their number one fan. Fifty years later his work is just as respected as he was, adored within the showbiz. A respect that he earned from turning his passion into his way of life. Just as Dian Hanson, the sexy book Taschen editor, puts into words, “I spent my entire life doing what I wanted to do and making money from it. How many people can say that?”
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On this issue:
PHOTOGRAPHERS
Baud Postma, Coco Capitan, Devin Blair, Dorn & Carbone, Emman Montalvan, Jason Falchook, Jo Metson Scott, Jonas Lindström, Juergen Teller, Laura Coulson, Masha Mel, Nicole Maria Winkler, Raffaele Cariou, Renate Ariadne van der Togt, Rita Lino, Romain Sellier, Tina Tyrell, Vicki King, Wai Lin Tse.
Baud Postma, Coco Capitan, Devin Blair, Dorn & Carbone, Emman Montalvan, Jason Falchook, Jo Metson Scott, Jonas Lindström, Juergen Teller, Laura Coulson, Masha Mel, Nicole Maria Winkler, Raffaele Cariou, Renate Ariadne van der Togt, Rita Lino, Romain Sellier, Tina Tyrell, Vicki King, Wai Lin Tse.
STYLISTS
Anna Pesonen, Emelie Johansson, Hamish Wirgman, Madeleine Østlie, Morgane Nicolas, Shirley Amartey, Tess Yopp.
Anna Pesonen, Emelie Johansson, Hamish Wirgman, Madeleine Østlie, Morgane Nicolas, Shirley Amartey, Tess Yopp.
