Study Magazine Vol. 16

In 1923, Thérèse Bonney, an American living in Paris, began photographing the modern interiors taking shape around her, to show them back home in America. She held a doctorate from the Sorbonne, was close to Raoul Dufy and Madeleine Vionnet, and preferred to document her own time rather than follow an academic career. That time was the age of modernism.

Her camera captured the interiors of Jean-Michel Frank, Pierre Chareau, Georges Djo-Bourgeois and Sarah Lipska, who were breaking the rules of domestic life: no more ornament or heavy furniture, but open space, unexpected materials and new objects. A century later, these rooms still feel radical.

The sixteenth volume of Study goes back into Bonney’s archive to tell the story of 1920s Europe through its interiors, and to bring back a largely forgotten woman who understood early on that a room says a lot about the person who lives in it. The portfolio is paired with Gertrude Stein’s text “Rooms”.

As a counterpoint, photographer Bruno Staub and fashion editor Charlotte Collet spent time with four teenagers in a trailer park outside Paris. There is no big story: they hang out, talk, wait and get bored, in clothes worn with no thought for fashion.

The brand insert is by Angela Hill for Bottega Veneta. In London, she photographed Los Angeles skater Georgia Martin in pieces from Louise Trotter’s collection mixed with school uniforms and everyday clothes, with no hair, no make up and no retouching. The line between the collection and Georgia’s own wardrobe disappears: fashion becomes clothing, and clothing becomes style.

Contributors: Thérèse Bonney, Charlotte Collet, Angela Hill, Bruno Staub, Gertrude Stein, Hisato Tasaka
Design: Rupert Smyth Studio
Content: 178 pages of colour and black and white photographs, text in English, protective packaging
Format: 21 x 29.7 cm