The latest issue explodes with new fashion director Robbie Spencer's "Trash & Burn" manifesto
I walked up and down the King’s Road with complete anger and resentment. People were extremely absurd and still stuck into flares, platform shoes, neat hair and pretending that the world wasn’t really happening. It was an escapism that I resented. There was also a garbage strike going on, and there was trash piled ten feet high... Wear the garbage bag, for God’s sake, and then you are dealing with it. That’s what I would be doing, I would wrap myself in trash
– Johnny Rotten
From Alexander McQueen and John Galliano to Maison Martin Margiela and Gareth Pugh, trash fashion has been a constant source of inspiration to designers ever since the Sex Pistols and Vivienne Westwood kickstarted the recycle revolution. To celebrate its uncompromising legacy, inspired in part by the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s PUNK: Chaos to Couture exhibition, our new fashion director, Robbie Spencer, teams up with photographer Paolo Roversi for an AW13 portfolio that screams sartorial anarchy. Kati Nescher sets the tone for their riotous 30-page collaboration on the cover, wearing Givenchy by Riccardo Tisci and a burning paper-stole created by Luke Brooks, a CSM graduate known for his fake-turd sweaters and gravestone t-shirt dresses. On page 46, the young designer invites us into his studio (his granny’s house) and reveals more about his cheeky DIY bricolage. We also visit Silvia Venturini Fendi in Rome for a mohawk masterclass and talk cosmic orgies with Tisci and his art hero, Marina Abramovic.
Elsewhere, Owen Myers flies over to Pennsylvania to meet Daughn Gibson, a man whose music owes as much to Hank Williams III as it does Burial. Over the course of one wild weekend, the country star nearly blasts his foot off with a shotgun, narrowly escapes a gay redneck gang-bang and goes hell for leather at a bluegrass rave in the mountains. It’s an outstanding read, as is Wil Crisp’s feature on the Libyan squatters living in the ruins of Colonel Gaddafi’s compound; Stephen Fortune’s investigation into bioart’s radical new experiments; and Danna Takako’s pieces on Atlanta viral rap-sensation Trinidad Jame$ and Sofia Coppola’s Bling Ring gang.
Zoolander fans, I’m sad to say that the immersive Derelicte retrospective didn’t make the cut. We decided to shine the spotlight on medical drones, milkshakes of mass destruction and Brian Eno’s penchant for sexy 80s bodybuilders instead. Sorry, Mugatu. Next season, yeah?
Editor-in-Chief
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