Perfect magazine is the new magazine of the famous stylist Katie Grant, who after two very important editorial adventures with projects such as POP and Love, he founded Perfect Agency, an agency that relies on a multi-channel approach of which the magazine is one of the pivots together with social networks.
Perfect is not a simple fashion magazine, indeed it is not a simple magazine.
As Katie Grant points out in the editorial: "What we strove to do with Perfect was to take the magazine format and elevate it from a disposable paper product to a desirable object, satisfying all senses, through sound and touch, word and image. We didn't want to make it perfect in the modern sense of the term, but we made it as completely as possible "
One of the most interesting aspects, in fact, is that the contents of the magazine encroach on other channels ranging from the web to the attached felxy disc.
Gucci collaborated with Perfect Magazine producing Notes from the Underground, a flexy disc produced with contributions from some representative musicians of the independent, experimental and avant-pop fringe, selected by the musical director of Gucci, Steve Mackey, and by Alessandro Michele who also illustrated the disc.
There are 11 fexy discs produced by Gucci.
Number of pages: 500+
Dimensions: 31x31 cm
Hardcover
English language
ISSUE 2
We have approached this issue with a growing awareness of the ways in which technology has made it possible to meticulously monitor and document our movements. The speed with which everything we do can be recorded is alarming and we cannot know for sure where all our information ends up.
This second (but third, considering issue zero) issue of Perfect magazine addresses the idea of celebrities in an age of mass surveillance - specifically, how our relationship with public figures has changed when the details of our own lives are increasingly accessible to people we do not know. Sølve Sundsbø follows Georgia Palmer around London City Airport on CCTV. Donavon Smallwood documents Hailey Bieber photographed by Felix Cooper. Nikolai von Bismarck sets his camera to night vision and monitors nocturnal happenings (on stage, of course) in a park near his home. Cho Gi-Seok translates facial recognition technology and CCTV cameras into a symbolic dystopian dream landscape. Steve Mackey films Emily Ratajkowski followed by the paparazzi on a movie night and talks to Amber Later about the politics of seeing and being seen. Amber also writes about the star line-up that was present at Gucci's spring show in Hollywood and how it reflects the contemporary appetite for sublime personalities.
We observe how fame creates a fantasy of familiarity, where we feel we know people intimately even though we've never met them - and we feel we have a right to judge them too. Cate Blanchett, one of the most followed actresses in the world and a living embodiment of the Hollywood stardom tradition, appears in Jordan Hemingway's filming of what it feels like to live life under constant control. Cate has learned the skill of keeping the intrusion that comes with fame at bay (significantly, Cate is not on social media).
TikTok turned Bella Poarch and Khaby Lame into global icons - in the midst of a global pandemic they brought joy into the lives of millions simply by being themselves. In their interviews they talk about the control their newfound fame has exposed them to and how to deal with it.
In their essays, Willy Ndatira and Paul Flynn consider the positives and potential pitfalls of virtual fame built on an online existence; Travis Alabanza describes the loss of control that can come from constantly having an audience you've never asked for; and Tom Rasmussen recounts how he came to reject the empty promises of fame.
The way the world is going, complete anonymity and the freedom that comes with it may end up becoming the thing we want most, as it becomes more and more difficult to achieve.