Interest in contemporary art has grown enormously in recent years. One of the reasons it has is artists’ increasing collaboration with the fashion world. Connections between art and fashion have never been stronger or closer than in 2008. Most interesting to me, within the context of Purple Fashion, is not the commercial aspect of this phenomenon, but the fact that artists are willing to share the stage with fashion, either by creating designs or by working with designers (as Richard Prince has with Marc Jacobs for Louis Vuitton). That’s why the cover of this summer issue presents a collaboration by fashion photographer Mario Sorrenti and artist Rita Ackermann, and why I chose to have Terence Koh’s personal collection of women’s clothing photographed, and to include myself in the story. But fashion people can also see life artistically. Karl Lagerfeld’s panoramic shots of the Park of Versailles capture a dark side…