FROM THE ARCHIVE: PERIOD 001
Issue 001, March 2017
Every publication has a beginning, and this was ours.
Released in March 2017, PERIOD Issue 001 was the first issue we ever produced. Looking back at it now, nearly a decade later, there is no pretending that everything was already figured out. The layout was simple, the visual identity was still being developed, and even the original PERIOD logo would survive for only six issues before the magazine underwent its first major redesign and something of a relaunch.
But that is precisely why this issue matters.
Issue 001 captures PERIOD before there were established rules, recognizable templates or years of archives behind it. It was experimentation in its purest form. We were discovering what the magazine could become while making it.
And while the design would evolve considerably, the editorial ambition was already there.
SON OF A GUN, photographed by Till Van Loosen and featuring Hanna Fischer, remains one of the photographs stories from that first issue that still feels remarkably strong today. Set against a rugged coastal landscape, the editorial contrasts delicate fabrics, lace, intricate headpieces and jewelry with enormous rocks, crashing water and an almost untamed environment.
There is something beautifully strange about it. Romantic without becoming overly pretty. Dark without becoming theatrical. Fashion exists within the landscape rather than simply being photographed against it.
That sense of experimentation was exactly what we wanted PERIOD to represent from the beginning: photographers, models, stylists and creatives being given space to produce work with a point of view.
The magazine around these photographs may look very different from the PERIOD we know today. The typography changed. The logo changed. The layouts became more sophisticated. Eventually, the entire visual identity would be rebuilt.
But SON OF A GUN reminds us that the most important part was there from Issue 001: curiosity, creativity and a willingness to take chances.
The design was only the beginning.
The work was already telling us where PERIOD could go.
CREDITS
Photography: Till Van Loosen
Model: Hannah Fischer
Hair & make up: Kati Mertsch
Wardrobe: Stefania Morland
Styling: Kids from the Hill
From the Archives is part of OFF THE PAGES, where PERIOD revisits editorials, cover stories, and defining moments from the magazine’s past while continuing to look ahead to what comes next.
