Over the past few years, Hedi Slimane's ongoing design collaborations with musicians on their stage costumes has allowed him unfettered access around the stages of live concerts by David Bowie, The White Stripes, Beck, The Rolling Stones, Blondie, The Strokes, and The Libertines...in Paris, London, Berlin, New York, and Los Angeles. This juncture between fashion and music has evolved into a personal photographic investigation on the mythology of the rock concert. In Slimane's pictures, the stars of the shows are often conspicuously absent; what the images reveal, instead, is a meditation on the creation of a rock personality, the silent ritual that goes on in the space he (or she?) inhabits. His images capture, as Slimane himself puts it, "the sacred--almost sacrificial--space of the stage."

Richard Avedon redefined portrait and fashion photography in the 20th century. In the 1940s Avedon burst onto the fashion scene, infusing his photographs with touches of realism and the fantastic. His images were among the first to replace the stiff poses of the past with energetic action scenes that commanded the pages of Harper's Bazaar and Vogue magazines from the mid-'40s through the 1980s. He took his models out of the studios and brought them to cafes and casinos, posing them with well-dressed escorts. His models nuzzled elephants, stood amongst circus performers, and leapt like gymnasts. As his career progressed, Avedon developped a deceptively simple studio portrait style, which he would continue throughout his life. With uncompromising directness, he portrayed his subjects against a white background, with no extraneous details to distract from the essential specificity of face, gaze, dress, and gesture. This challenging innovation, coupled with the artist's intense interest in his subjects and mastery of his craft, resulted in mesmerizing portraits, among them Marilyn Monroe, Anna Magnani, Suzy Parker, Tina Turner, Stephanie Seymour, and many more.

When those in the magazine industry need inspiration, they look to Purple. It has influenced countless other magazines and spawned trends that have trickled down through all levels of culture. To celebrate its fifteenth anniversary, this volume brings together the best in fashion, art, and culture from Purple’s illustrious history. Purple revolutionized fashion photography in the nineties by commissioning fine artists to shoot fashion editorials. What resulted was a raw, improvisational aesthetic, which continues to exert its power today. Many of our most promising artists contribute to Purple’s pages, including Terry Richardson, Juergen Teller, Jack Pierson, Richard Prince, John Currin, and Vanessa Beecroft. Among the celebrity muses who appear regularly are Kim Gordon, Chloe Sevigny, Kate Moss, Catherine Deneuve, and Vincent Gallo. Along with images, the book also presents essays by such renowned writers as Glenn O’Brien, Gary Indiana, and Dave Hickey. These texts further the book’s larger purpose: to chart the development of art and fashion during the past fifteen years. This is the ultimate deluxe collection for serious fashion, art, photography, graphic design, and magazine aficionados.

Children, landscape, lovers--these subjects are almost as common to the photographic lexicon as light itself. But Sally Mann's take on these iconic themes, rendered through both traditional and esoteric processes, is anything but common. Astonishingly original both in image and technique, Mann's work consistently challenges the viewer: in her hands, experiences drawn from daily life are rendered both disquieting and sublime. Now, having studied relationships between parent and child, artist and subject, life and death, Mann investigates the bonds between husband and wife. Exquisitely detailed, intimate, psychologically and emotionally intense, Proud Flesh engages territory most often inhabited by male artists portraying their wives and female lovers, as Mann turns the camera to her husband of 39 years, Larry. Beautiful, textured and provocative, these unprecedented nude studies neither objectify nor celebrate; rather, they go far under the skin to suggest a relationship between man and woman that is profoundly trusting: sensual, sexual, sometimes painful, often indescribably tender and always unblinkingly honest.

The impulse to do AMERICAN MUSIC, writes famed photographer Annie Leibovitz, “came from a desire to return to my original subject and look at it with a mature eye. Bring my experience to it…make it a real American tapestry.” Her ambitious idea became AMERICAN MUSIC, a stunning collection of photographs of the musicians, places and people that enrich the landscape of American music. As Rolling Stone’s chief photographer for over thirteen years, Leibovitz created a legendary body of work. Her portraits of some of the world’s most talented musicians capture more than the performer, they convey the art of making music. For AMERICAN MUSIC, Leibovitz traveled across the country to juke joints in the Mississippi Delta, honkytonks in Texas, and jazz clubs in New Orleans “to take pictures in places that mean something.” In her signature style, she shares stunning portraits of American greats -- B.B. King, Willie Nelson, Bonnie Raitt, Bruce Springsteen, Beck, Bob Dylan, Mary J. Blige, Jon Bon Jovi, Steve Earle, Ryan Adams, Miles Davis, Etta James, Pete Seeger, Emmylou Harris, Tom Waits, The Dixie Chicks, Dr. Dre, The Roots and many more. AMERICAN MUSIC includes a commentary about the American Music project by Leibovitz, short essays by musicians Patti Smith, Rosanne Cash, Steve Earle, Mos Def, Ryan Adams, and Beck as well as biographical sketches of all the musicians.