Issues: A History of Photography in Fashion Magazines

Description

For nearly a century, fashion magazines have provided sophisticated platforms for cutting edge photography - work that challenges conventions and often reaches far beyond fashion itself. In this book, acclaimed photography critic Vince Aletti has selected 100 significant magazine issues from his expansive personal archive, revealing images by photographers rarely seen outside their original context. With his characteristic elan and featuring stunning images, Aletti has created a fresh, idiosyncratic, and previously unexplored angle on the history of photography.

Vince Aletti is a writer, curator, and critic whose work appears regularly in Artforum and Aperture, among other publications. Based in New York City, Aletti served as art editor of the Village Voice from 1994 to 2005 and is former photography critic for The New Yorker. Male, a book of images from his personal collection, was published in 2008, and in 2005 he won the ICP Infinity Award for Writing.

"Stunning."-The New York Times "Issues is a testament to the abundance of marvelous photographs that haven't been digitized."-WSJ. Magazine "Catalogues the seminal work of photographers like Irving Penn, Steven Meisel and others, splashed across the pages of magazines like Vogue Italia, V and Dutch. It highlights certain issues of these magazines, with notes from Aletti on why they are both personal and widely significant."-The Face "Vince's obsession with print has seen him amass what is likely the largest personal collection of magazines in the world... His sprawling knowledge of photographers, art directors and celebrities is legendary... Vince's fascination with the history of magazine publishing might have led him to go to extreme lengths in securing issues that fill the gaps, but the resulting book has made it something accessible to everyone: the first magazine in Issues is a 1925 issue of Harper's Bazaar, and many of the spreads from these historic issues are being republished for the first time."-i-D "As any magazine hoarder will know, there is a nostalgic kind of joy to be found in opening up an old glossy. Recalling the clothes we wore, the trends we tried and the celebrities we followed, their musty pages act like Proustian time capsules for a bygone era. For Issues... curator and photography critic Vince Aletti, a collector of magazines since 1965, has turned his own archive into a comprehensive study of the fashion images that have defined the past century... Each selection is significant and accompanied by a short text. While many of the images are familiar in their own right, here it is the reminder of their context - alongside text and straddling the gutter - which makes the book so special."-The Financial Times "Critic Vince Aletti tours the reader through the vibrant history of fashion editorial, shuttling through visual movements, leading photographers, and unforgettable images curated from all eras of the medium with sharp grace. Filled with rare examples sourced from his own expansive collection, it's an engrossing look at a visual art we often take for granted."-Surface Magazine Online "A fabulous record of almost 120 years of glossies... It is not an exaggeration to say Issues is a masterwork, a cavalcade of the best of the best. It's a tribute to all of the artistic directors, fashion editors and stylists that have fearlessly pushed forward barriers and educated their readers... This book is a true panorama that traces the growth of fashion as a social and creative witness to changing attitudes and beliefs, from the days when it was a rarified pleasure of the rich to the all-embracing position it is in today. And what a panorama!... This is a book for all who are interested in social and creative development through style, photography, fashion and glamour. Challenging, stimulating and beautiful, there is, literally, nothing to not like about it."-Business of Fashion online "This gorgeous and glossy big black book... A serious fashion photography book, Issues is a corrective to the genre's presumed superficiality... In the pages... a visual history of the evolution of image-making unfolds... A feast for the eyes: moon shots, Pop art, group shots, fashion art. As Issues shows, the art owes a great debt to fashion image-makers, who powerfully create fantasy, capture mood and constantly reinvent the possibilities of photography itself"-The New York Times "A celebration of the collaboration that goes into a printed page."-Globe & Mail Style Advisor "Fall back in love with fashion editorials. Phaidon's new tome, Issues, is a deep dive into the history of fashion photography."-Grazia magazine