Viscose Journal is a fashion criticism journal launched in 2021, based between New York and Copenhagen.
Edited by fashion and art scholar and curator Jeppe Ugelvig, the publication is released irregularly, with each issue built around a specific theme.
Each issue also takes on a unique book format, challenging disciplinary boundaries and expanding the possibilities of research, production,
and criticism within fashion. Rejecting the isolation of disciplines, industries, and geographies, the journal speaks to a global community of
intellectually engaged fashion thinkers. It continues to be published without advertisements, thanks to research collaborations
with institutions and museums.
Issue 3 was co-edited with writer and director Cheuk Ng, based in London, and designed by ecocatcher, a design studio based in Shanghai.
This issue attempts to deconstruct the concept of “Asias” through fashion. Focusing on the potentiality of the plural form "Asias,"
the issue delves deep into the hierarchies of the global fashion supply chain—from producers to consumers—and considers porous
communities around the world that might self-identify as “Asian.”
Featuring contributors from over ten countries and voices from diasporic communities worldwide, this issue centers on regions surrounding
the South China Sea. It challenges the idea of Asia as a singular concept, image, or place and instead presents a series of “Asias” that are
symbolically, economically, socially, and politically deployed within the frenzied systems of fashion.
This issue is produced with a firm and self-aware pluralism. Rather than prescribing a single direction, it highlights a wide range of creative
responses to constantly unstable questions around origin, community, ownership, symbolism, appropriation, and diaspora. It explores
how these issues intersect as forms of style—thrillingly, and at times, riskily.
*“Viscose Journal is a fashion criticism journal launched in 2021. I first learned about it through my close friend Cheuk Ng, who lives in
Hong Kong and works as an editorial assistant for the journal. Cheuk and I studied at university in London around the same time, and after
graduating, we each returned to our respective home countries—so I was naturally curious about the kind of work she’s doing now.
When I received the magazine, I was immediately struck by its unique design—it looked like a glossy crocodile-skin handbag.
Despite the cute exterior, opening the pages revealed not images but dense, text-heavy contributions from a wide range of writers across fields.
As I began to read, I realized I had never truly encountered something that could be called ‘fashion criticism’ before.
I’ve always been less interested in fashion itself, and more drawn to its connections with art, culture, subculture, labor, politics, and technology.
I even see fashion as a representative force of global capitalism. Most of the fashion writing widely available today is driven by marketing,
treating readers as customers—enslaved to consumer culture.
Viscose Journal, on the other hand, isn’t bound by this model. It provides a space to critically consider the role of fashion in society and to
explore notions of beauty from many angles. The journal’s name comes from viscose fabric—a familiar and versatile material—signifying its
capacity to connect different categories through the medium of fashion criticism.
One article that left a particularly strong impression on me was titled ‘Buy and Let’ in the inaugural issue. It’s a conversation between
writer-musician David Lieske and fashion designer Bakri Baknit. The two met at RAW-fitting, a fashion archive/showroom in Hamburg, and
shared how the place and time they spent there were special to them. The space displayed archived pieces from designers like Martin Margiela,
Bernhard Willhelm, BLESS, and HAKEEM.
They reflected on how fashion in the ’90s and early 2000s was far more disruptive, and lamented the disappearance of such fluid platforms.
Bernadette Van-Huy from Bernadette Corporation described late-’90s fashion as ‘the internet before the internet.’ Fashion was a platform
that connected everything—fashion, photography, architecture, music, club culture—at unprecedented speed.
Richard Prince shot for Helmut Lang. Hermès bags were photographed in mud. Anders Edström photographed Ann-Sofie Back in tattered
clothes. In the late ’80s economic downturn, artists turned to the fashion world to survive. From that emerged experimental shops like
BLESS and RAW-fitting, which flipped the concept of the store and made ‘concept’ more important than the clothes themselves.
BLESS continues to challenge today’s consumer culture and hype-driven branding. For example, selling a jumper with the designers’ faces
printed hugely on them is like setting a trap for consumers.
Fashion is twisted, but that twist is oddly charming—and I find myself drawn to it.
As we return to trends on a 20-year cycle, I’ve been very interested in the designers of the 2000s. It’s difficult to find documentation and
information from a time before the internet.
That’s why, to me, Viscose Journal is like a textbook.”*
— Tenko Nakajima
FEATURING: Yat Pit, Joni Zhu, Thuy Pham/United Bamboo, Hu Yinping, Troi Oi, Sung Tieu, Joyce NG, Asai, Cheuk NG, Xiaopeng Yuan,
Feyfey Worldwide, Thuy Linh Nguyen Tu, Strong The, PZ World, Bruno Zhu, Carl Jan Cruz, Ma Huilan, Luke Sylvester Quismundo,
Alice Sarmiento, Elaine Wing-Ah Ho, Toton, CFGNY, Philip Huang, Korakrit Arunanondchai, Poppy Wu, Fan Yang, Shanzhai Lyric, Zairong Zhang,
Sara Liao, Samuel Gui Yang, VeniceW, Keke Tumbuan, Baby Reni, Ican Harem, Mandy PinkyGurl, Arlette Quynh Anh Tran, Giang.it, Julie Chen,
Rui Zhou, Simon Wu, Mara Coson, Syna Chen, Seth Shapiro/American Manufacturing, Evelyn Taocheng Wang.
softcover
264 pages
179 x 372 mm
color, black and white
2022
ISBN: 9772597257006
published by VISCOSE
Founded in Tokyo in 2010, twelvebooks is a distributor specializing in art books.
As the exclusive Japanese representative for selected international publishers, twelvebooks manages the distribution
and promotion of their publications with a vision of making art books more widely accessible.
twelvebooks is also involved in various art book initiatives, including organizing the TOKYO ART BOOK FAIR.
In November 2024, twelvebooks opened SKWAT/twelvebooks in Nishikameari, Katsushika, a space that offers public access to its storage warehouse.
