Niche Fashion Magazines as Micro Societies

he article aims to discuss the functioning of niche fashion magazines, those positioned outside the commercia! circuit and widely distributed. In doing so, it focuses on two French case studies, "Purple" and "Self Service", founded in the first half of the nineties and stili active today. These magazines are models of the responses and impulses provided to the editoria! panorama through the questioning of established practices of production, distribution and fruition as well as the construction of an alternative to the officia! circuit. They are different from popular periodicals as they were self-initiated, i.e. not supported by a publisher, and are characterized by a high leve! of experimentation and research, a slow periodicity, the attention to hidden worlds, a horizontal business vision. The article dwells on the importance of niche fashion magazines not as means of mediati on or communication but as "places" in which people can act, recognize and establish relations with one another. These publications may be understood as "micro societies" and they construct communities that are shaped by their founders, their readers and all those who in one way or another contribute to their evolution. The longevity of "Purple" and "Self Service" seems to support this position, since in spite of having changed over time, often putting themselves on a sounder footing and establishing a dialogue with the fashion system, they stil! cultivate the collaborative dimension today, handling relations and the publishing project in the independent manner of their origins.