Hi, everyone!
Garage is published 2 times a year, in Brooklyn. When it was founded, in London, in 2011, the title was named for the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow, Russia. The magazine’s creator, Dasha Zhukova, was also a founding director of this museum, opened in 2008. Zhukova is a well known and well-to-do Russian-American socialite with a passion for contemporary art and the money to support and collect it. Vice Media purchased the magazine in July 2016, and moved some of the editorial functions to New York.
Zhukova was previously editor of POP magazine, a London-based fashion magazine, from 2009. It was her first editorial experience and she only remained there for 3 issues. In her endeavor at Garage, she has maintained a deeper editorial staff beneath her directorship.
Earlier issues of Garage illustrate Zhukova’s ties to the art world. While the usual advertising suspects of the avant garde, Prada, Gucci, and Marc Jacobs grace the end papers, they accompany ads from auction houses and galleries, such as Sotheby’s and Gagosian. Likewise, Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons exhibit in layouts alongside the fashion editorials and interviews.
Many magazines seek to provide a worldwide gallery-like experience in a print format, but Garage is more successful than most. It’s refreshing not simply because it eschews the minimalist formats of its competitors, but because it includes fashion as an art form in gallery-imitating layouts. Unlike so many of the fashion oriented artsy titles, this one works from art –> fashion, not the other way around. Layouts really give the feeling of moving to a new gallery displaying completely different work than the last.
In addition, Garage brings a much more global look at the art and fashion worlds. The models include more women of color, the interviews more women’s writing, and the fashion not just that of Paris, Moscow, and New York, but also rising stars from Nigeria’s rising film industry. Derek Blasberg’s sly email conversations give the reader the feeling of being a jetsetting cultural influencer. Zhukova’s money, connections, and savvy, have given birth to a good looking and surprisingly thoughtful publication.
