Viscose #5

The fifth issue of Viscose explores fashion’s multifaceted retail spaces and cultures. With the evolution of shopping in the long 20th century as its focus, the issue looks at the shop as a central nexus where communities are continuously produced and re-imagined through commerce, and always in response to larger societal changes.

With a special attention to the role of fashion retail within urban spatial politics (particularly relating to gentrification and surveillance), the issue seeks out histories of projects—often developed with or by artists—that have embraced the shop as a medium of both possibility and contestation.

Viscose is an ad-free journal for genre-defying fashion thinking. Since its launch in 2021, Viscose has fostered a global community of passionate readers and researchers across the industries of art, fashion, and academia, committed to publishing exhilarating and in-depth content that won’t be found anywhere else. Each issue of Viscose sees a complete re- imagining of format and layout, with a nod to histories of artist publishing and other rare books.

Viscose is a new journal for fashion criticism. It presents critical writing and projects by a wide range of authors from the worlds of art, fashion, literature, and academia.