Ten Reasons to Buy AnOther Magazine S/S16

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AnOther Magazine S/S16Photography by Colin Dodgson, Styling by Katie Shillingford

As the 15th anniversary issue of AnOther Magazine hits newsstands across the globe, we present ten reasons why you absolutely must get your hands on it at once

1. Discover the world as it is seen through the eyes of Karl Lagerfeld, one of fashion’s most difficult talents to pin down, in AnOther Magazine Editor-in-Chief Susannah Frankel’s long-form profile of the visionary. “It almost goes without saying that Karl Lagerfeld possesses the finest taste imaginable,” she writes in the article. “His manners rival those of an 18th-century aristocrat, such is their refinement.” The article is the result of a whole year spent trailing in the wake of Chanel’s enigmatic couturier, and the revelations which result, from his four-year love for his feline companion, Choupette, to Frankel’s embroidery lesson with Maison Lemarié, will astound.

2. Take a trip down memory lane with Pedro Almodóvar’s timeless cinematic muse, Rossy de Palma, to recall the anarchic nightlife of Madrid in the early 1980s, in a feature photographed by Daniel Riera and styled by Nell Kalonji. “De Palma and Almodóvar collided in 1986 when the filmmaker walked into one of the all-night dive bars that had mushroomed across the city – a rockabilly hole in the wall named King Creole – and found himself transfixed by the young woman behind the bar,” Hannah Lack writes. “‘I was wearing a very sexy dress and I had a very good body,’ de Palma explains. ‘Pedro was still underground then, but at night in Madrid, he was already a star.’”

3. Delve into the mind of musical trailblazer Grimes, who reveals her most influential literary moments in the Document section, which she guest-edits in this issue.  Her “taste in literature is as esoteric and far-reaching as her own sonic universe,” Hannah Lack writes in the introduction – an apt foreword to a selection which includes the likes of Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Stanislaw Lem and Charles Baudelaire, accompanied by her own illustrations.

4. Enjoy an exclusive preview of cult boutique Dover Street Market’s vast new Haymarket epicentre, one month before its March 19th opening date, in the ten-page Blommers and Schumm-photographed, Agata Belcen-styled story. “Rei, like Comme des Garçons, like Dover Street Market, says ‘Fuck you all, I do what I want!” Raf Simons tells Susannah Frankel in the accompanying editorial feature. “In today’s fashion system that is ultimately admirable.”

5. Forget everything you thought you knew about party food with Corrado Calza, the Italian chef, or rather food artist, responsible for the kind of canapés which are so exquisitely crafted as to give party rings and breadsticks a bad name. In honour of AnOther’s 15th anniversary, Calza has created a menu inspired by the issue’s prevailing themes – from the world’s smallest hot dog, sprayed with edible silver – “sixties Andy Warhol meets iconic Americana,” he exclaims – to The Raver’s Breakfast, in which a yellow egg yolk resembles the iconic 90s rave smiley face, and a tiny square of bacon a tab of LSD.

6. Close your eyes and dream yourself into Les Deux Cafés, the Michéle Lamy-run restaurant which transformed an LA car park into a nightly bacchanal of Hollywood luminaries, literary greats, rock royalty and progressive politicians. "A project the size of Les Deux Cafés amounted to something like social engineering, altering a great many people's lives and changing the way the city itself behaved, directing flows of people, redirecting eddies of money, and channelling the currents of taste and culture," Chris Wallace writes in the feature. "I came to understand that it was a kind of Situationist art form, a sociological art, with Micheèle as its leading practitioner."

7. Step into a 17th century Dutch still life masterpiece where gravity is suspended, models morph into fantastical yellow-plumed creatures, and even the soft furnishings have the power to taunt you. Photographed by Julia Hetta and styled by Agata Belcen, fashion story Of Fish and Flowers presents a surrealist-inspired alternate universe that will play on in your daydreams.

8. Be bewitched by musical visionary Björk's extraordinary transformation at the hands of photographer Nick Knight, stylist Katy England and makeup artist Peter Philips, in the otherworldly story Paradise Now, where sequins and strangeness collide to spellbinding effect. 

9. Learn about the cultural resistance movement from the truest of all creative polymaths, Tilda Swinton, in conversation with AnOther founder Jefferson Hack for his new book, We Can’t Do This Alone: Jefferson Hack The System. “We were fighting just to be our own mainstream, not to be excluded or marginalised or dismissed or disenfranchised,” she tells him of the magical moment in the 1980s when she met Derek Jarman in London’s intensely creative underground. “For me, it’s a question of being a witness.”

10. When the party is over, soothe and recharge your aching mind with the Chiltern Firehouse’s Luis Simoes-recommended ‘morning after’ cocktail – a potent mixture of Reposado tequila, Ancho Reyes liqueur, lemon juice, roasted tomato jam, jalapeño pepper and salt, served on the rocks. And then, prepare to begin all over again.