Ali Kepenek and Mikel Benhaim were best friends who split their lives between London and Berlin and shared a conviction that the fashion magazine as a form had become too polite, too predictable, and far too beholden to the rules of editorial design. In 2016, they debuted the first issue of King Kong — a 430-page behemoth with four different covers, inspired by the Guerrilla Girls, featuring Catherine Deneuve, India Menuez, and Brooke Candy, with a guest fashion direction by Nicola Formichetti. The only instruction given to contributors was that there were no instructions.
Benhaim, who trained as a graphic designer, art-directs every issue with a deliberate disregard for the conventions of editorial layout. There are no consistent grids, no uniform margins, no typographic system carried from page to page. Each story is designed as its own world, which gives the magazine an expressive, almost anarchic visual rhythm that has made it one of the most collected independent fashion titles of its generation. When someone once told Benhaim that King Kong needed more white space, he laughed.
The biannual publication has featured Janelle Monáe, Billie Eilish, Travis Scott, Marilyn Manson, and Soko alongside emerging artists, photographers, and designers who might never appear in a mainstream title. Each issue revolves loosely around a theme — worship, ritual, power — explored through fashion, art, film, music, and literature. The editorial position is explicit: art and fashion do not operate in a vacuum, and the magazine exists to portray their multidisciplinary entanglement with the forces that shape contemporary life. Kepenek, who serves as editor-in-chief and creative director, has described the magazine's long-term goal as democratizing art and fashion for the benefit of both artists and consumers.
Alongside the magazine, Kepenek and Benhaim run King Kong Studio, a creative agency that extends the publication's ethos into commercial work — brand identities, exhibitions, events, production. It is a model that keeps the magazine financially independent without compromising its editorial freedom. King Kong calls itself "The Artist's Bible" and has been doing so, with characteristic lack of modesty, since 2014. With nearly 200,000 followers on Instagram and issues that sell out and become collector's items, the claim is less boast than business plan. The magazine's own motto — "We never repeat ourselves. Just reinvent." — is the kind of line that would sound empty from most publications. From this one, ten issues deep and still print-only, it sounds like a dare.
Explore King Kong at <a href="https://kingkongmagazine.com/" target="\_blank">kingkongmagazine.com