The Fashion World’s Most Eccentric Magazine
In the fall of 2013, photographers Greg Kadel and Aaron Ward, and photo-editor Jade Berreau, joined forces to start Let’s Panic: a biannual photography and fashion magazine intended to give artists ultimate editorial freedom. Inspired by magazines like Manipulator and Egoïst, the trio strived to create the kind of beautiful publication that readers would cherish and save, with the philosophy of letting contributors develop content organically.
After becoming disillusioned in his own work as a fashion photographer (“I felt like it became all about the credits,” he explains), Ward, the magazine’s editor-in-chief, says he wanted to create a platform for photographers to work beyond the restrictions of advertising (the publication is currently sponsored exclusively by Pirelli).
The first issue of Let’s Panic featured photography by Ken Schles, art by Harmony Korine, and conversations with Yoko Ono, Mary Ellen Mark, and John Waters. Now, the team is launching their second issue — which goes on sale exclusively at Dover Street Market tonight, and will be available on newsstands in mid-June — which, among other features, includes a set of previously unpublished Mario Sorrenti road-trip photographs originally commissioned in 1994 by the surfer/designer Shawn Stussy. “We just took a ton of mushrooms and weed and ended up going to concerts and stuff like that,” Sorrenti recalls. “We’d meet kids and say, ‘Hey, can we take your picture?’ Whoever we thought was cool … when we were finished with the road trip we went to see Shawn and we showed him and he was like, ‘These are terrible.’” Upon discovering the photos last year, Ward and Berreau disagreed with Stussy’s assessment. “They’re just gorgeous photos — there’s a timeless beauty to them,” Ward told the Cut. “It’s always nice to see a photographer doing something they’re purely passionate about.”
The series, “Furthur,” appears as the centerpiece of the latest issue, alongside a wide array of photography by Kava Gorna, Jennifer Starr, and Kadel and Ward themselves. Click through the slideshow for a first look at the publication.
