YOU’RE SO VAIN: Dasha Zhukova’s Vanity project for Garage magazine is anything but. Fed up with all the self-love in the air, the editor in chief decided on vanity as the theme for issue number 4. “Marketing strategies have taken over our personalities and I hate it,” she said. “Everyone is in the business of branding themselves. Personality has lost its meaning — as people are growing obsessed with being fashionable, more so than being themselves. I wanted this new issue to tackle these issues of modern identity and celebrate unique personalities.”
Urs Fischer, Boris Mikhailov, Alex Sainsbury and Theaster Gates (whom Zhukova interviewed) are among the renegades featured. “I think things have gotten very homogenous in some areas of art and fashion, and when you spot a true original — it’s unmistakable,” she said. “They’re not trying to emulate anyone else — personally or professionally.”
Patrick Demarchelier shot a Cindy Sherman-inspired fashion spread including the cover with four models wearing masks of Sherman’s MoMA self portraits. The issue hits newsstands Saturday. Having given the project her blessing, Sherman said, “I like how creepy the photos turned out, even though they don’t really look like the character in my photo. But that’s better, I suppose.”
Zhukova declined to say what she and Roman Abramovich have in store for the trove of Ilya Kabakov’s work they recently purchased. Perhaps other priorities await. “My next special project is about a month-and-a-half away — another baby,” she said.