FROM THE ARCHIVE: Italian Vacation
Revisiting the cover story of Issue 17, Aug/Sep 2017
Some editorials become inseparable from the moment in which they were created. Others manage to feel strangely current years later.
For the first edition of From the Archive, we return to 2017 and one of PERIOD’s earliest cover stories: Italian Vacation, photographed by Miglė Golubickaitė and featuring model Kasparas Drazdauskas.
Published in Issue 17, the story arrived during PERIOD’s first year, when the magazine was still defining its visual language and discovering exactly what it wanted to say about menswear. Looking back almost a decade later, Italian Vacation captures many of the elements that would continue to appear throughout the magazine: strong color, unconventional masculine styling, expressive portraiture, and fashion approached with a sense of play rather than restraint.
The setting feels almost deceptively simple. Sunlight, residential architecture, weathered walls, climbing greenery and roses become the backdrop for a wardrobe built around saturated pinks, turquoise, mustard, terracotta and earthy neutrals. Instead of competing with the location, the clothes seem to become part of it.
There is also something distinctly cinematic about the story. The sharp afternoon light, oversized glasses, slicked hair, textured jackets and almost deliberately awkward poses suggest a character rather than simply a model wearing clothes. At moments he appears detached, at others confrontational, and occasionally almost romantic, particularly when flowers become part of the styling.
That tension is what still makes the editorial interesting.
Menswear in Italian Vacation was not presented as rigid or traditionally masculine. A vivid pink biker jacket, turquoise trousers, patterned leather, fitted knitwear and flowers were allowed to coexist without explanation. The result feels confident precisely because it does not try to justify itself.
The styling also reflects a particular moment in fashion. There are unmistakable echoes of the 1970s in the striped knits, warm palette and exaggerated eyewear, but the editorial never becomes costume. Instead, those references were filtered through the menswear of 2017 and the visual identity PERIOD was beginning to establish.
Seen again in 2026, perhaps the most interesting thing about the photographs is how little they rely on spectacle. There is no elaborate set and no complicated narrative. Much of the story comes from color, sunlight, clothing, expression and the relationship between the model and the camera.
And sometimes that is enough.
Italian Vacation reminds us that an archive is more than a record of what was published. It is a record of where a magazine was creatively at a particular moment. Issue 17 belonged to a much younger PERIOD, still experimenting, still evolving, and still discovering the visual vocabulary that would follow it through the years.
Nearly ten years later, we are opening those pages again.
CREDITS
Photography: Miglė Golubickaitė
Model: Kasparas Drazdauskas / Demons Model Management
Fashion Designers: Jovan and Luca Larenza
Styling: Giedrė Kvaraciejūtė
Originally published in PERIOD Issue 17, August 2017
From the Archive is part of OFF THE PAGES, where PERIOD revisits nearly ten years of editorials, covers, stories and moments from behind the magazine, alongside the new work shaping what comes next.
