PURPLE—the magazine Elein Fleiss and Olivier Zahm started twenty-five years ago in Paris—celebrates its anniversary this fall with a “25 Years 25 Covers” edition.
In the beginning there were several Purples—Purple Fiction, Purple Fashion, Purple Sexe, which eventually came together in one quarterly edition—but in 2004, PURPLE truly split in two, with Fleiss editing Purple Journal (and later Les Cahiers Purple and Les Chroniques Purple), and Zahm starting Purple Fashion, the current biannual.
Fleiss and Zahm are also the co-editors of the exhibition catalogue Elysian Fields (2000), and the collection Purple Anthology: Art Prose Fashion Music Architecture Sex (2008).
“Doing a luxury magazine today is one of the paradoxes of the Instagram era… A magazine is not an ego trip… It’s a collective work by a group of creative people who believe in the artistic value of the print media and share a similar vision…
“Every image, every single text, the choice of paper, the layout, even the choice of typefaces matters. Everything matters… PURPLE is made to last… to capture a moment every season… In this period of global internet obsession and digital amnesia, I think that means something.”— Olivier Zahm, editor’s letter.
PURPLE—25 YEAR ANNIVERSARY ISSUE.
Available at Book Soup on Sunset Strip, Skylight Books in Los Feliz, LACMA and MOCA bookshops, etc.
From top: Purple Autumn/Winter 2017–2018 covers, including a painting by Duncan Hannah, and Slick Woods in Chanel.
