It was hard to resist the beautiful new magazine I saw on my last trip to Barnes and Noble. Selvedge caught my eye as much for it’s georgeous trade-paper back style binding as it’s high-end art photography and high price tag: $20.00 US! (The subscription price is $80 US for 6 issues or $40 for an online only verstion) The subtitle of the magazine is: “The fabric of your life: Textiles in fine art, fashion, interiours, travel and shopping.”

The beautiful pictures and unusual textiles contiued throughout the magazine, but the depth of the writing does not match the beauty of the photography. Articles are short, top-level at best, and seem to be almost long captions for the photos. (And yet in an article about lace there was work described that I would have loved to see photographed, but it was not. An article about Swedish mittens leads with a description of a one-of-a-kind mitten that’s not pictured. A story about tapestry collector Shiela Paine has a nice portrait of Shiela Paine but no pictures of her collection.)

Pluses: There’s an international listing of textile art events worth reading. If you’re in the UK, you might also like the listing of fiber classes. The advertisers are enticing–there’s a wealth of suppliers, designers, and manufacturers advertising in here who’s websites I’m dying to visit.

This beautiful magazine makes a great addition to the coffee table–it’s somewhat like a museum show catalog or a book of abstracts on amazing subjects, but with few or no leads on how to gather more information…

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Magazine Review: Selvedge