Beyond commerce: the fashion magazine as art and theory

What are the defining characteristics of a fashion magazine? Can the genre exist outside of a commercial context? Are aesthetics and theory alone enough to create something worth reading? Taken outside of the context of consumer culture, what is its difference from "art" publications? These are the questions central to this project, entitled "Beyond Commerce: The Fashion Magazine as Art and Theory." The project visually and critically examines some of the tensions and contradictions between fashion and art in general terms, and it explores specific topic and debates within contemporary fashion theory through a review of the current academic and cultural literature on the business and art of fashion and magazines, interviews with fashion editors. and the creation of a magazine proof entitled Deeply Superficial.