Art and Fashion in Dasha Zhukova’s Garage
LOOKING at the debut issue of Garage, one of the most intriguing magazines to come along in years, it is not entirely clear whether this is a fashion magazine that takes more than a passing interest in art, or an art magazine that knows its stuff about fashion. (Hint: it comes out during Fashion Week.)
The magazine, created by Dasha Zhukova, a former editor of Pop, and named after the contemporary art center she opened in Moscow in 2008, includes collaborations between prominent figures of both worlds and blurs the boundaries to such a degree that even the artist Dinos Chapman said his work in the magazine could be described as “a full-blown fashion shoot.” Working with the photographer Nick Knight, Mr. Chapman created a creepy dollhouse in which a puppetlike version of the model Lily Donaldson wears designer duds from Marc Jacobs and Mary Katrantzou.
One of the more provocative covers (there are three versions) shows a Hedi Slimane photograph of a lower half of a nude model, whose crotch is covered by a green butterfly sticker created by Damien Hirst. The sticker peels off (inspired by the Velvet Underground album art by Andy Warhol) to reveal a butterfly tattoo, also of Mr. Hirst’s design.
“It is so very, very different from other magazines,” said Garage’s art director, Mike Meiré, who is also the art director of the influential German magazine 032c. The masthead also includes Shala Monroque as creative director and Joan Juliet Buck as an editorial consultant, and style-world contributors like Giovanna Battaglia.
“It’s like a box of Pandora,” Mr. Meiré said. “You don’t know what is happening on the next page.”
In a newsstand environment dominated by digital perfection, Garage stands out because it looks almost handmade. The type is an amalgam of fonts, set to appear randomly. Some pages are pure mystery, like a spread that shows a dress called “Lettuce by Alexander McQueen.” It appears to be made of romaine, a creation by Ms. Battaglia and the photographer Fulvio Bonavia. Also included is a Prada dress made of citrus and a Moncler coat of anchovies.
“I hope nobody reads our e-mails back and forth,” Ms. Battaglia said. “We were writing things like, ‘yes, Prada is an orange, that’s genius! And Moncler is a fish!’ ”
