Perfect, the new Katie Grand magazine

We had been talking about it for several months now and, between one rumors and another, previews of covers and spoilers on partner brands and collaborators, our curiosity to discover the new magazine of the legendary Katie Grand, former editor of Pop and Love, has risen to stars.

Finally a couple of weeks ago it arrived and we found ourselves in our hands a tome weighing almost four kilos in weight, 464 pages of pure beauty introduced by a rigid cover and, listen, a flexy disc signed by nothing less than Gucci.
But Perfect it is not just another magazine and it is not a classic fashion magazine, it looks like a big book (no, you will not be able to read it sitting comfortably in an armchair or taking it for a walk in the subway) that makes its multi-channel approach its real strength. And we admit it, we at Frab's who for two years have been telling you about our love for niche magazines which, as we often write, are for those who have lost their senses because they must be lived with all their senses, we were struck by the editorial by Katie Grand who writes: "What we strove to do with Perfect was to take the magazine format and elevate it from a disposable paper product to a desirable object, satisfying all senses, through sound and touch, word and image. We didn't want to make it perfect in the modern sense of the term, but we made it as completely as possible ".

However, curiosity does not stop at this issue because, promises the Grand, each edition will have a different format.
The pilot edition, which is deliberately number zero because it was born in the midst of a pandemic and therefore accompanied by a series of unexpected difficulties that changed the original project of the magazine, is a large square hardcover.

To welcome us there is the flexy disc signed by Gucci that has collaborated with Perfect to produce Notes from the Underground: a series of 11 flexy discs produced with the contribution of some representative musicians of the independent, experimental and avant-pop fringe, selected by the musical director of Gucci, Steve Mackey, and by Alessandro Michele who also illustrated the disc.
This is followed by what seemed to us a very long series of 40 traditional advertising pages which, however, placed all together at the beginning of the magazine, do not spoil the contents, flowing and precious.
To get us to the heart of the magazine, there is a reflection by the critic Bridget Foley on the role that fashion will have in the post-pandemic that tries to answer some questions: what will fashion be for? Will the couture, the fashion shows, the emotions and the imagination that spring from every single collection still be relevant or will they be perceived as irresponsible, superfluous, meaningless?
Between one editorial and another, one artistic project and another, we encounter interviews and long-forms, such as the one with a slightly reticent Virgil Abloh, but perhaps for this reason even more pragmatic and charismatic in our eyes. Then we talk about sustainability with the Danish model Peter Dupont, who founded an eco-conscious fashion company, Dura and Forma; and again, the theme of (im) perfection, dream and chimera that hardly turns into reality is faced.
Then there is a fashion portfolio with Kate Moss, Ajok Madel, the actor Kingsley Ben-Adir made by Rafael Pavarotti, a service on the TikTok star Dixie D'Amelio photographed by Jahmad Balugo, services of the photographer Rasharn Agyemang, the writer Pierre A M'Pelé (aka Pam Boy), artist Laetitia Ky and photographer Trunk Xu.

The pages that I personally think I loved the most of the magazine are the ones that close it. A change of paper, which from thick and glossy becomes plain and light, almost catapults us into another magazine, away from the glamor and sparkles of high fashion: Bored is the title of Alasdair McLellan's photographic portfolio that closes Perfect, dedicated to a gray and foggy England, torn down in the bleak winter of its third lockdown. A photographic series that is the perfect antagonist of the lively and colorful beauty perceived in the previous pages and that gives a good sense of that "complete", referred to the magazine, pronounced by Katie Grand in her editorial.

Excluding the advertising that, although present, does not disturb the independence of the magazine, we like Perfect because it sums up well the high quality characteristics (of form and content) that we look for in every magazine. Expectations more than exceeded, in short, for what will surely become an excellent competitor of "magazines" of the level of Purple, able to combine purely fashion content with art, culture, but above all social issues that stimulate reflections and changes.

If you want to get lost in its pages, you can find it HERE