Luis Venegas on the underrated craft of designer catalogues and printed matter
“Every six months, when the season was changing, I took the train from my little hometown to Barcelona and spent a whole afternoon going from Armani to Versace to Donna Karan, all the fashion luxury stores, collecting that season’s paper footprint. I was 13 or 14 years old and carried around a backpack full of catalogues. As for the brands we didn’t have in Barcelona, such as Yohji Yamamoto, I would flick through magazines and go to the gutter, the brand credits: usually on the very last pages, I would discover the telephone number of this or that store. I would ring from the house telephone to Paris or Milan – God knows in what language, some kind of English I hope – and I would request these catalogues. Even though I was a child, they would send them to me.”
Luis Venegas, magazine publisher and collector, Another magazine
This is a fab interview series by Elise By Olsen for Another magazine on printed matter collectors and their libraries. I’m a tad jealous of Venegas’s organised storage! We have a similar appetite for books (and a penchant for framed Bruce Weber posters) but where mine have outgrown their shelves and are breeding in every room, his are housed in these wonderful wooden drawers and cabinets – not to mention the wee mezzanine gallery. Read more here.
WORDS: Disneyrollergirl / Navaz Batliwalla
IMAGES: Fede Delibes / Another magazine
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5 May, 2023 @ 9:52 pm
Great story! Thank you for sharing it.