Fashion: Visionaire, Zines & Artists Books

'Alternative' fashion media are forms of fashion publication that come from outside the mainstream publishing industry. This includes self-produced zines, independent and small-press magazines and fashion book objects with limited print runs. 

You can look at these publication to get different and more diverse ideas about what fashion media and publishing are, and how fashion as a topic has been viewed and represented.

Zines (pronounced 'zeen', short for magazine) are typically self-published, noncommercial, nonprofessional, non-profit, limited edition works that are often distributed by the creators themselves, but the term is used to refer to a wide range of material. They often have a DIY aesthetic, with a folded, stapled and photocopied appearance. Zines are often produced by persons of marginalized groups, and represent a diverse range of ideas, experiences and interests.

For instructions on how to make zines yourself, try the following guide:

Visionare, founded in 1991, is a luxury art and fashion publication. As it experiments with formats and combines several different mediums, it has become known as less a traditional magazine showcasing art, fashion and design, and more as a piece of art itself.

The Library hold a number of Visionare publications as a part of our Special Collections. More information and highlights from the collection can be found on the Special Collections page here.

Explore the Library's full Visionare collection on the Library Catalogue here. Contact your Subject Librarian to arrange to view items from this collection. 

A number of zines are held in the Library as a part of our Artists' Books Collection. See the Special Collections page for more information on this collection  

The Artists' Books Collection, showing many different bindings, materials, ideas and interpretations of "the book", can be found in the brightly coloured filing cabinets on the ground floor of the Library. Click here to see the full collection in the Library Catalogue, alternatively use the search box below to find individual titles/artists.

Chapman University Feminist Zine Archive
Writings and artwork depicting feminism and women's issues in zines created at Chapman University.

Internet Archive Zines
Collection of digitised zines from various distros, made available by the non-profit Internet Archive. 

QZAP - Queer Zine Archive Project
Aims to preserve queer zines and make them available to researchers, historians, punks, and anyone else who has an interest DIY publishing. Hundreds of fully digitised zines. 

Papercut Virtual Library
Digital zine library on topics including but not limited to: politics, multimedia, DIY guides, queer & gender politics, feminism, race, class, environment fiction/poetry, and music.

POC Zine Project
Makes zines by POC (People of Colour) easier to find, distribute and share.

Sherwood Forest Virtual Zine Library
Independent media library focusing on zines and DIY culture. 

Small Science Collective
 A collaboration of artists, students, scientists that produces small zines and web comics on topics from ants to galaxies.

Zines on issuu
Although originally a print-only medium, zine publishers have started using issuu to distribute their work digitally.