Visionaire's $150,000 Magazine Collection

by Lisa Palladino (RSS feed)
Jul 3rd 2008 at 9:02AM

The Wall Street Journal reported that Visionaire magazine -- a publication where design, marketing, style, trends and art intersect -- is charging $50,000 for a special Goyard trunk designed for its collectors. The handmade trunk will house the magazine's first 50 issues. This summer, Visionaire also will offer 10 complete sets of its first 50 issues in the Goyard trunks for $150,000. The customized steamer trunks, assembled by hand, will have shelves and insets designed for all 50 issues. Collectors also can buy an empty trunks for €34,500 ($54,000).

From its premiere issue in April 1991 (now up to 54 issues, with each issue typically priced between $150 - $350), Visionaire "challenged notions of what it meant to be an art and fashion publication and was conceived of as a venue for artists such as Mario Testino and Steven Meisel to publish personal work," WSJ stated. It has morphed into something more like a design challenge for its many contributors.

Each issue (which can take between nine months and three years to complete) is typically a mixed-media riff on a theme, posing an ongoing set of challenges to a small crew of designers. For example, White began with the question: How do you publish without using ink? Answer: a combination of Braille, embossing, varnish and paper-cut illustrations. Scent came with perfume capsules, Taste had specially-designed flavor-strips and Sound featured a Mini Cooper toy car that played record albums.

Tags: collectible, collectibles, Goyard, magazine, magazines, publishing, trunk, Visionaire