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Title: Smile ID: Fashion and Style: the Best from 20 Years of ID by Terry Jones, Tricia Jones ISBN: 3-8228-5778-5 Publisher: TASCHEN America Llc Pub. Date: May, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $39.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (2 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: OUTSTANDING 5/5!
Comment: On Page 316 of Smile i-D, there's a reprint of a two-page spread from i-D Magazine's December 1992 issue. The left page is empty, save for a black-and-white photo in the center of the page of a female model in a ripped white t-shirt. The page on the right is exactly the same, except for a similarly sized photograph of two vacuum cleaners. The spread is part of a piece on creating your own couture.
But then again, we're talking about i-D here.
For over two decades, Britain's i-D has had a singular mission of documenting street style, coupled with an utterly innovative artistic vision. Smile i-D is a 600-page retrospective incorporating covers and spreads from the first 200 issues of the magazine. More than this, it's a consummate documentation of the past twenty years of cutting-edge style and culture.
24 years ago, Terry Jones, then Art Director at British Vogue, decided to abandon his post to document underground, "street" style, then an unheard-of concept. The result was the founding of i-D magazine. Taking a journalistic approach, i-D sought to document the spirit and style of the real world by using the streets of London as its canvas.
At times, people ended up in i-D just because they looked either hip, unique, or bizarre enough. More often than not, it was all three.
As a result, every nascent trend of the past twenty years fell into the pages of i-D. Punks, mods, ravers, trustafarians, bikers, hip-hoppers, modern primitives, gearheads, drag queens, club kids, dominatrixes, skinheads, glam rockers, dreads, new wavers, and so on were documented equally with an utter disregard - almost a contempt -- of what the latest news from Milan or Paris was.
Taking the concept of innovation to the next level, i-D began to feature anyone who seemed to be on the verge of crossing over to the mainstream, and as you leaf through the pages of this retrospective, the roster of then-unknowns who graced i-D's pages and covers is nearly breathtaking. Boy George in 1980. Galliano and Margiela years before they became household names among the fashion cognoscenti. Sade in 1983, a full year before her debut album was released. Madonna in 1984, just as "Borderline" was beginning to break radio. The list goes on.
Of course, there is a method to all this madness. Over the course of its 608 pages, it becomes clear that the fever pitch that i-D has sustained into its third decade is the side effect of its goal: the total democratization of style. By highlighting every trend, fad, and style movement in existence it transcends the dictatorial nature of fashion magazines. There is no right or wrong, no "in" or "out". By presenting anything that looks good instead of prescribing a specific look, the concept of fashion is rendered irrelevant, usurped by a manic promotion of individual style. All racial, social and economic boundaries are erased, replaced by the notion of pure individuality.
Accompanying all of this is Jones's unique art direction, which although it has evolved a bit over the course of twenty years, continues to complement the "anything goes" ethos of i-D with a likeminded aesthetic. Minimal layouts are sandwiched in between pages of utter chaos. Text runs in all directions ont any given page. Models fly across the pages, their expressions and bodies frozen in gleeful contortion. Full pages are devoted to minute details, while entire style spreads take up a half-page.
Absorbing all of this in one or two sittings is impossible; the combination of Jones' hyperkinetic visual style and the nonstop barrage of style, music and pop culture will literally make your head spin. Smile i-D is a coffee table book, to be sure, but its eye-popping visuals and undiluted take on everything that has been hip for the past twenty years ensure that it will be a book you come back to again and again.
Rating: 5
Summary: Superbly chronicled evolution of a top style magazine
Comment: There's a passage in the introductory text written by former editor Dylan Jones that says: "i-D was the first street fashion magazine, a pick'n'mix grab-bag of punk fashion and DIY style, a pop-cultural sponge soaking up everything with inelegant haste." Very aptly put. And it's all symbolized with an iconic wink (or a gesture suggesting one) on the cover of every issue.
Throughout the nearly 600 pages of this heavy, photo-packed book (which I happily made the time to survey, one page at a time, front to back), you'll see a maturation from a haphazardly compiled fanzine of punk fashion to a more polished journal of all that which is currently fashionable. No subtle difference, indeed. Black and white photos of random subjects sporting the latest in 80's leather, safety pins and spiked hair give way in the 90's to better-produced shots of more recognizable models and artists. I'm impressed that the raw, "immediate" flavor of the photography and design just gets better throughout i-D's first twenty years.
There's not enough space to detail all the things I liked about this book, but I found especially interesting the early photos of some models and pop icons before they became widely known. I thought the numerous quotes by artists/actors/musicians added a good comical complement to the pictures. Also, the refinement (my opinion) of grahic design techinque is evident with the aging of i-D: it's not unlike looking at a scrapbook of an acne-ridden adolescent who grows into a hip and handsome young adult. Although i-D is somewhat new to me, it's now one of my favorite style publications. I wish I hadn't missed the first couple hundred issues, but I'm glad I got this book.
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Title: Fashion Now by Terry Jones ISBN: 382282187X Publisher: TASCHEN America Llc Pub. Date: December, 2002 List Price(USD): $39.99 |
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Title: Unseen Vogue: The Secret History of Fashion Photography by Robin Derrick, Robin Muir ISBN: 0316860239 Publisher: Little Brown Uk Pub. Date: October, 2002 List Price(USD): $65.00 |
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Title: Dazed and Confused by Dazed and Confused Magazine, David James ISBN: 1861541384 Publisher: Booth-Clibborn Editions Pub. Date: 15 March, 2000 List Price(USD): $59.95 |
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Title: Talking Fashion by Sarajane Hoare, Fabien Baron ISBN: 1576871150 Publisher: powerHouse Books Pub. Date: April, 2002 List Price(USD): $49.95 |
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Title: Mario Testino: Portraits by Mario Testino, Patrick Kinmouth, Patrick Kinmonth, Charles Saumarez Smith, Alexandra Shulman ISBN: 0821227610 Publisher: Bulfinch Pub. Date: April, 2002 List Price(USD): $75.00 |
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