Returning for Spring/Summer 2025, the latest issue of WIP Magazine is built around the idea of tangible culture. Across 240+ pages, it explores how items and objects can become a means for storytelling – unlocking memories, shaping identity, and serving as totems around which communities can gather.
This theme is reflected in the issue’s central dossier, which invites a sprawling list of creatives, from London, New York, Shanghai, and Paris, to showcase one item that represents a formative influence. The responses vary, but themes emerge: UK fashion designer Nicholas Daley speaks of a t-shirt printed for the pioneering reggae club his parents ran in Scotland in the 1970s and 80s; Paola Buendia, of Parisian streetwear label Personalities, shares a sofa created from repurposed tote bags, which tells a story of diasporic experiences in France. Rapper Implaccable offers a novel (and cost-effective) take on a hip-hop rite of passage, with his own 3D printed chain; music critic Jon Caramanica shares two of his most prized possessions, sent to him by UGK’s Bun B and the late Pimp C; Shanghai-based publisher Same Paper detail their appreciation of a Teller cello bridge, despite never having played. Each item serves as the jump-off point for a broader conversation or an exploration of the ideas and memories these seemingly simple objects might hold.
And all of that is before we have touched on this issue’s cover(s). One features an image shot in Seoul, by the photographer Ramona Jingru Wang. The other features MIKE, the ascendent New York-based rapper, shot in Paris following the final date of his lengthy European tour.
This issue’s key skate feature, meanwhile, is a ‘postcard from Istanbul,’ conceptualized and shot by Adem Ustaoğlu who, along with his crew typically found at Beşiktaş Plaza, is helping shape a new era of skateboarding in Turkey.
In New York, photographer Mengyu Zhu captures Lulu Yao Gioiello, founder of FAR-NEAR, a burgeoning publication somewhere between a book and a magazine, which reckons with Asian identity and forges new perspectives on the continent. And staying in the Big Apple: artist and writer Seth Price speaks to artist and writer Brad Phillips. Both have a penchant for releasing (occasionally absurd) ephemera, and together they explore the similarities and peculiarities of their respective practices.
Back in Paris, a short journey from where Léa Sen grew up, the musician known for collaborations with the likes of Sampha and Vegyn, reflects on the eve of her debut album, with an accompanying editorial by REMEMBERYOUWEREMADETOBEUSED.
There is more, much more: a Jamaican beekeeper in Toxteth, Liverpool known for eschewing protective gear, turntable fanatics in Berlin seeking to keep the legacy of Technics alive, skate filmer Romain Batard’s Frankenstein camera set-ups. Marseille-based photo book publisher Loose Joints detail a decade of work. We also explore the exquisitely illicit works of Milanese art book bootleggers Erased de Kooning. The issue closes with a series of texts: an impromptu dinner with artist Sophie Calle, a reckoning with the legacy of Dj Mehdi, and Paul Dalla Rosa on the libidinal thrill of ‘bidding in the swarm.’
WIP magazine is a biannual publication by Carhartt WIP. Issue 11 will be released on June 26.
*The magazine’s release in North America will take place on July 3, while the release in the Asia-Pacific will take place on July 10.
