Fashion's Embrace of Fanzines, Magazines, and Books as Cultural Tools

Despite the digital age, print media persists, especially in fashion, where zines, magazines, and books have become coveted cultural objects. Originating from punk and student movements of the 1960s-70s, zines were low-cost, countercultural tools for distributing ideas. Today, fashion brands revive them: Alessandro Michele referenced the queer zine FUORI!!! at Gucci's spring/summer 2023 show during Milan Fashion Week, and in 2022, Bottega Veneta under Matthieu Blazy relaunched Butt magazine, a queer publication founded by Gert Jonkers and Jop van Bennekom. Cavie Project, founded in 2019 by Paolo Coppolella and Milo Mussini, evolved from a photographic fanzine into a publishing house in 2023, releasing monographs by Nicolas Dykmans, Attilio Solzi, Gavin Watson, and Lilia Carlone. Fashion books remain fetish objects, with high-quality editions from Taschen and Assouline. A recent educational manual, CLU++ER by Andrea Cammarosano, published by the Royal Academy of Arts Antwerp, NABA Milan, and HEAD Geneva, features conversations with Walter Van Beirendonck, Lutz Huelle, and Sara Sozzani Maino, aiming to transform intuition into collaborative design competence. The article argues that print documentation elevates fashion to an artistic discipline and cultural heritage.