Great rack!

The cornerstone of every fashion enthusiast is of course the humble magazine. Amongst the pages of advertisements and editorials lie the things that matter and appeal to the different dimensions that make us who we are. Whether you're a fan of the highly commercial side of fashion that magazines such as Vogue and Elle bring to peoples live or if you're more on the creative side and find Dazed & Confused and Lowdown filled with the things that make you tick, there is a magazine for everyone. I find that I'm more on the latter side, although i find it's always good to keep an eye on the competition with the odd purchase of Vogue every so often.
So anyway That right there is most of my collection from the last year when i started buying them almost religiously. I finally got some shelves to put them so i could de-clutter my room, and then it go me thinking about what my favourite magazine are.


Tokyo Graffiti
Not strictly a fashion magazine but definitely full of inspiration. While i was living in Tokyo i found this magazine in one of my favourite shops. The magazine covers the residents of Japan and usually has a running theme through each issue. They look at what people carry with them, what they think, and in some issues like the one shown, documents 40 people at different ends of the social spectrum and looks at their rooms and the things that makes who they are. It's definitely a very unique magazine that I've not managed to anything like it outside of Japan.


Plastique
This quarterly magazine was one of the lucky finds a had on a monthly pilgrimage to Borders (Borders being probably the best place to find a wide range of magazines in any town). Plastique covers the same bases as most magazines that are within the same genre, but it's the way it does it which pleases. With no contents page the magazine lets you tread your own path through the world it weaves. I can't really explain any further how Plastique succeeds, just be sure to buy it and find out for yourself.


Tank
Pushing the boundaries of what is fashion, Tank, in the same vein as Plastique is a quarterly magazine but what differs it to it's companion is that it offers a much more striped down take on the arts. Currently celebrating their 10th anniversary, Tank magazine has attracted many big names onto its pages. The current issues features photography by the great Juergen Teller a long time contributor as well as John Galliano and Christian Lacroix.


SO-EN
Like a mish-mash of Tokyo Graffiti, Vogue and Dazed & Confused; SO-EN manages to encapsulate the elements of all three magazines into one small high-end magazine. Not something that is easy to do in a Japanese market driven by global brands. Surprisingly i first found this while i was in Hong Kong at the start of the year and made sure to buy a couple of back issues to tide me over until i could next get hold of them. This magazine is great for the creative use of make-up and styling in that the shoots tend to be studio shot leaving the styling doing all the talking.


Dazed & Confused
This is by far my definitive monthly fashion bible. Arriving on my doorstep every month like clockwork, my next week is filled with ideas and a willingness to get creative. Show casing everything the other end of the magazine spectrum doesn't, from indie music and movies to collaborations you wouldn't see coming, Dazed has a cut and paste hobby craft feel to it whilst remain of the highest quality. This months issue see's the British youth invasion take place with all contributors being of the teenage persuasion. My favourite magazine by far.

Honourable Mention:
iD
Would have been up there with my favourites had i not lost faith in this monthly publication recently. I guess like alot of indie music that becomes popular people begin to feel like the band have sold out, which in some cases is true but is mostly non-sense. Yet with iD recently i feel this analogy rings true, losing a real sense of what it is and becoming more of an advertising machine. Still i continue to buy it every month like clock work for sheer fact that, like Vogue, it is an ever present part of the fashion industry and is something that needs to be kept up with on a kind of regular basis.

Guilty pleasure:
Nylon
While i find that the articles are sometimes sparse or lacking in depth it's the feel of the magazine that draws my eye whenever i see it in store. Offering respite from the sometimes gloomy eye of many indie publications, Nylon always seems to bring a smile to my face with it's pop-py colours and teen imagination. After all nobody can live in the dark all the time.