A conversation with Hanka van der Voet, Beau Bertens, Hendrickje Schimmel (Tenant of Culture), Anouk Beckers, Elisa van Joolen and Femke de Vries. Installation by Tenant of Culture.

Press & Fold is a new independent fashion magazine that aims to explore alternative fashion forms and narratives. The bi-annual magazine provides a platform for critical fashion practitioners who do not obey the rules the fashion system is currently dictating.

In a time where everything in fashion is in flux so little of it seems to be discussed on the pages of fashion magazines, forever trying to sell us more things we do not actually need. Ever since the first fashion magazine appeared the goal has been to show and sell – some more explicit than others – the latest fashions. This obsession with ‘the new’ has had a constraining influence on the development of an independent fashion media and a serious fashion critique. Press & Fold wants to discuss, but more importantly, imagine what fashion would like if we take away advertising and editorials, take away the need to sell something through the magazine, and instead focus on having conversations on the production, presentation, consumption of clothes and the contexts in which this takes place. Press & Fold focuses on a fashion reality that isn’t based solely on consuming the latest fashions but on our experiences through fashion, seeking an alternative fashion discourse that goes beyond treating fashion as a commodity.

For its inaugural issue, Press & Fold reflects on the relation between fashion and the street, as the street has always played a pivotal – but ever-changing – role in the generation, presentation and perpetuation of fashion. A short overview of the content: Beau Bertens researches the impact of visual language on the street by deconstructing the shopping bag and examining its rhetoric power by placing it in an editorial context, Johannes Reponen critically examines concepts of ‘street style’ and ‘streetwear’, Laura Gardner writes about how 90s art groups such as Art Club 2000, Honey-Suckle Company and Bernadette Corporation presented a critique of the institutions of fashion through the concept of ‘collectivity’, Renee van der Hoek discusses with Camiel Fortgens how to find one’s place within a changing fashion system, Ricarda Bigolin of D&K explores the slippages between workwear, streetwear and branding in the context of current high end and luxury fashion practices, Duran Lantink shows his daily observations from the streets of South Africa, the urban tales of streetwear brand AVOIDSTREET are imagined in an advertorial, Tenant of Culture reflects on narratives surrounding waste in fashion, Ruby Hoette documents items of clothing found in public spaces, reflecting on concepts inherent to the current fashion system such as newness, brand value versus material quality and uniqueness, Femke de Vries constructs a fashion column, and Elisa van Joolen proposes an alternative fashion editorial that shows the material properties of clothes by Dutch streetwear labels Bonne Suits, By Parra, Ontour and Patta with the precision of an X-ray vision.

Press & Fold | Notes on making and doing fashion is initiated by Hanka van der Voet in collaboration with art director and graphic designer Beau Bertens. The magazine is a collaborative research project that connects critical fashion practitioners from all over the world.