Ten Reasons to Buy AnOther Magazine A/W17

1. Rooney Mara discusses this prolific year in her career, which sees her star in no less than five films and work with award winning-directors from Garth Davis to Terrence Malick and Gus Van Sant. Talking to Deborah Orr, Mara unpicks the politics that govern her role choices, be it a search for complex female characters or traversing taboos, an approach that is encapsulated in her upcoming role as Mary Magdalene. “Everyone I talk to says, ‘Oh, she was the prostitute.’ I’m like, ‘No! She was one of the apostles,’” she tells Orr. “Yet in our society she’s known as the whore, and Peter and Paul and all the other disciples have churches dedicated to them all around the world […] She risked her life to witness his death. So it’s just amazing to me that she’s ‘the whore.’” Expanding on the actress’s uncompromising curiosity is a fashion story captured by Tim Walker and styled by Katie Shillingford, a portrait that plays on Mara’s protean sensibilities.

2. Peter Lindbergh and Robbie Spencer capture the magnificent figure that is Solange Knowles. A series of images of the artist showcases both the newest graduate fashion talent and independent designers renowned for their uncompromising aesthetic, thus mirroring Knowles’ bold influence and power. Her breakthrough album A Seat at the Table, has seen Knowles empower a generation of young people through her reflections on modern black identity. Lynette Nylander’s interview explores the soul-searching creation of Knowles’ art. “I made this record to find some sort of reconciliation with myself and how I acted...” she tells Nylander. “It’s been really interesting trying to figure out how to have that conversation with the people who love this record because I had to do this album to try to make myself a better human. It’s been so wonderful and humbling when you start at the root of that and then see how it can grow.”

3. Susannah Frankel invites us into the world of Vivienne Westwood and Andreas Kronthaler, the latter having officially taken the reins of Westwood’s mainline collection this season, after 25 years of working together. Talking to the pair, and their collaborators – from Kate Moss to Juergen Teller, Julian Assange to Pamela Anderson – Frankel uncovers this maverick world that continues to inspire the industry today. The feature is illustrated by a fashion story photographed by Willy Vanderperre and styled by Olivier Rizzo – a 30-page tableau of Kronthaler’s latest collection starring Saskia de Brauw.

4. In celebration of Alessandro Michele’s colourful stamp on the Gucci world, the AnOther Magazine centrefold returns with a fashion story and pull-out poster created by visual artist Gareth McConnell and Katie Shillingford. “The fact that we use the word ‘universe’ means that we are referring to something enlarged, something big,” Michele explains. “My Gucci universe is inclusive. It fragments to recreate in a contemporary way.”

5. Alexander Fury celebrates Maria Grazia Chiuri, the first female designer to take to the helm at Dior, a maison whose history he has carefully charted over the course of his career. His interview with the new artistic director examines her unique ability to bridge modern ideas of femininity and reverence for the French fashion institution’s esteemed archive. Photographing the house’s archives, Craig McDean photographs the Haute Couture collections of Chiuri and her predecessors – Christian Dior himself, Yves Saint Laurent, John Galliano and Raf Simons among them, with styling by Katie Shillingford.

6. For his 100th collection, shown this season, Dries Van Noten cast 54 models from different generations, each of whom have walked for him throughout his career. Collier Schorr photographs Van Noten’s latest collection, which pools inspiration from his archive, and echoes the designer’s thoughtful casting. The result is a series of highly emotive portraits that explore the very individual beauty of modelling greats including Alek Wek and Guinevere Van Seenus.

7. In time for a new exhibition opening at the Galerie Azzedine Alaïa, we are offered an insight into the work of photographer, and leader of the New British Sculpture movement, Richard Wentworth. A three-year relationship with Azzedine Alaïa and unprecedented access to the maison’s ateliers results in an exploration of the beauty of the quotidian, as well as the exquisite work behind-the-scenes at this couturier’s headquarters. Having introduced the pair, curator Donatien Grau details the coming together of these two artistic forces.

8. In one of his final interviews, Pierre Bergé discussed the building and preservation of the legacy of Yves Saint Laurent. Although he founded the label with his partner, Bergé had never wanted to be a financier, as he candidly explained. “I refused to be a businessman – but I became a businessman for Yves. To help him. To save him. To give him back his place,” he explained. Two exhibitions open this autumn at both Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris, and Marrakech, and the remarkable archive stands as testament to their extraordinary relationship.

9. Grace Wales Bonner guest-edits Document, compiling a selection of texts that have inspired her own work. Collaborating with Brooklyn-based artist Paul Mpagi Sepuya for the first time, this illustrated anthology spans notions of black masculinity via Hilton Als’ White Girls, and hyper-reality courtesy of Jean Baudrillard. These themes are woven throughout both Bonner’s masterful collections and Sepuya’s work, as she explains, “I was moved by its directness, the desire, the clarity of his vision, but also by the vulnerability I perceived in the men he depicted, portraits that felt both beautiful and romantic to me.” Such a lightness of touch can be seen through this literary selection too.

10. And finally, AnOther Way to Wear offers a lateral look at the season’s trends, as photographed by artist Jackie Nickerson. This beautiful body of work is styled by Agata Belcen and Nell Kalonji.

The Autumn/Winter 2017 issue of AnOther Magazine will be on sale internationally from 14 September, 2017.