Just before the internet arrived (which let’s face it has made pretty much everything a bastardised version of something else that was around two weeks previously) a visionary magazine was launched that duly changed the face of fashion, culture, current affairs and even the queen (who they made black). Like a big dose of Italian flavoured LSD Benetton’s COLORS magazine was game-changingly influential in it’s boundary pushing themes and use of photographs that nobody else would have the balls or bravado to publish. Throwing the trivialities of the catwalk firmly out the window COLORS dived head first into headline grabbing controversy via issues themed around serious, thought-provoking stuff like racism, war, AIDS, religion and poverty with an admirable sense of honesty not to mention style.
Never the easiest publication to get hold of in the UK, you can know get the inside story behind the 25 years of the magazine’s existence and the best bits from it’s ninety issues thanks to this impressive new book put together by founder Oliviero Toscani and Luciano Benetton (both of whom have been interviewed in the book). As well as being an incredibly cool coffee table book this is also an important historical document about the state of the Western world during it’s transition from one crazy century to the next.