acne paper #7

acne paper: autumn/winter 2008
photography: daniel jackson
models: guinevere van seenus, boris kolesnikov
this is without a doubt in my top five favorite editorials of 2008. this shit is fucking ridiculous. but then what else do you expect from one of the most directional and interesting magazine out there. leave it to those scandinavians and all their design superiority to come out with one of the most cohesive spreads of the year. yes there is a lot of nudity (which is why i just linked the site that has the whole thing rather than put it here) and you might think what does nudity have to do with fashion. well everything really. i mean we dress up to cover our naked bodies, but at the same time we make sure that what we put on accentuates what we're trying to cover as much as we can. or at least use clothes as an tool to give the illusion of having a better body underneath. what i really dig about this is that there is a severity and almost pristine coldness in the pictures that had references to pre-raphelite and religious iconographies, the works of jean auguste dominique ingres and jean vermeer, victorian portraiture, but held together by the juxtaposition of using the works from some of fashion's most contemporary avant garde designers such as junya watanabe. there is so much intellect and concept behind this idea that in many ways exemplifies the scandanavian approach to their visual language. its meticulous in its development but the end result is clean and appears effortless. i can't wait to see this magazine face to face and make out with it in my head.