In 2005, the Swedish fashion label Acne Studios did something that almost no brand had done before: it published a real magazine. Not a lookbook dressed up as editorial, not a catalogue with literary pretensions, but a genuine biannual culture publication with an independent editorial team, contributors from outside the fashion world, and no obligation to feature the brand's own clothing. Jonny Johansson, Acne Studios' founder, wanted a magazine that reflected the spirit of the company — which at the time was still a creative collective rather than a global fashion house. Thomas Persson, who became editor-in-chief and creative director, turned that impulse into something that the New York Times' Cathy Horyn would call one of the best little fashion magazines around.
Acne Paper ran for fifteen issues between 2005 and 2014. Each was built around a single theme — The City, Escapism, Education, Playfulness, Elegance, Exoticism, Tradition, Eroticism, Art/Spirituality, Legendary Parties, The Studio, Youth, The Body, Manhattan, The Actress — and each treated that theme as a point of departure for an exploration that ranged across centuries and disciplines. Fashion spreads were just one element in an editorial mix that drew on photography, art, literature, journalism, philosophy, and science. A feature on fifteenth-century tapestry might sit alongside an interview with Isabelle Huppert. LGBTQ culture shared pages with master painting. Dance, sculpture, meditation — nothing was off limits as long as it served the theme.
The magazine was printed in A3 format — oversized, physically commanding, designed to be kept rather than discarded. Persson worked with stylists Mattias Karlsson and Marie Chaix across the entire run, and their fashion stories remain as fresh today as they were on first publication. Contributors included Sarah Moon, Paolo Roversi, and Benjamin Alexander Huseby, alongside writers and thinkers who brought the historical perspective that gave Acne Paper its distinctive depth. It was produced by a small team that was not part of Acne Studios' full-time staff — a deliberate separation that preserved editorial credibility and prevented the magazine from feeling like a brand exercise.
The publication ceased in 2014, not for financial reasons but because its creators did not want the format to become repetitive. After a seven-year hiatus, it returned in 2021 with a sixteenth issue titled Age of Aquarius — longer, at 500 pages, more politically engaged, and reimagined as a hybrid between magazine and coffee table book. The print run increased from 4,000 to 7,000 copies. Priced at €40 and sold in Acne Studios stores and select retailers globally, the relaunched Acne Paper was designed as a collectible object — complete with a removable cover that doubles as a poster. A 568-page retrospective book celebrating the magazine's archive, with new essays by Sarah Mower, Vince Aletti, and Robin Muir, accompanied the relaunch.
Persson, who in the intervening years co-founded the style magazine Luncheon with Frances Armstrong-Jones and served as creative director of L'Uomo Vogue, returned to the editorial helm. He has described Acne Paper as a laboratory of editorial ideas — a place where the freedom of not needing to make money through advertising allowed the team to pursue whatever fascinated them. The world was different when the magazine was first made, Persson has said. It was before social media, and there was an innocence to the editorial choices. It felt very off the radar, just publishing work they loved.
That innocence is impossible to replicate, but the ambition is not. In a landscape where most branded magazines have retreated to digital platforms and brand-centric content, Acne Paper remains a physical object that insists on being more than the sum of its branding — a magazine published by a fashion house that reads, against all odds, like a magazine published by people who love magazines.
Explore Acne Paper at <a href="https://www.acnepaper.com/" target="\_blank">acnepaper.com