Contributor, Issue 15 (Sofia Fanego cover)

Exploring fashion through art and photography since 2008, Contributor invites the viewer into a three-dimensional world of inspiration and creativity. In bringing together some of the most interesting artists today, Contributor highlights experimental approaches to photography. The print magazine is available online and at selected stores worldwide. The production team behind Contributor consists of Editor-in-Chief Robert Rydberg, Creative Director Martin Sandberg, Publishing Editor Antonia Nessen, Executive Editor Magnus Magnusson and Fashion Editor Hilda Sandström, working alongside editorial partners.

In this issue:

“Conventional surfaces are no longer what they once seemed, imbuing everyday reality with fantasy, feeling and the freedom to experience clothing in new ways. As fashion finds ways to make the virtual and the physical converge, the surfaces lining our bodies may begin to conceal the challenges we face, or provide temporary escapes from the realities we confront every day.”/Bradley Quinn in the essay “Surface Deep”

What’s in the box? The new print issue of Contributor is here! Instead of a conventional format, we continue to package the magazine in a box. Inside you’ll find a selection of large prints. The theme that runs through this collection of photography, interviews and essays is “escape”. Because fashion has always provided space for fantasy.

Photography can recreate reality according to the escapist and imaginative conditions of the fashion world, provoking thought and feelings that move beyond the realm of what’s visible in the image. At its best, fashion imagery can work in liberating ways and be an agent for change. It can be about exploration and continuous questioning of stereotypes, norms and established truths. Staging the past in the present or imagining the future, through styling and settings, photographers and stylists can create stories that continue outside the picture. To some extent, escapism is fashion’s principal raison d’être. When George Orwell wrote about the struggles facing people during the 1930s in The Road to Wigan Pier, he centered in on the magic power of clothes: “you may have three-halfpence in your pocket” but “in your new clothes you can stand on the street corner indulging in a private daydream of yourself as Clark Gable or Greta Garbo which compensates for a great deal”. And that’s what fashion shares with other visual art forms: the power to trigger our imagination and open our minds.