Some of this 1984-85 iD imagery is genuinely cool, really chic e.g. this one below
Or just fun
But some of it is a hot mess
'
And some edges into Nathan Barley territory
iD always had this thing of pushing style to a sort of jolie laide point - and then beyond into outright unpleasing to the eye
That's what makes it interesting as a magazine and why I would dearly love to have the complete run of its first several years (alas they go for astronomical prices - fashion designers trying to pillage old ideas must be a major pressure on the vintage value - but also just international Anglophiles and nostalgic ex-stylists now monied enough to rebuy what they once bought and chucked out)
Why oh why are they not pdf-ed by some loon online?
Later on iD gets to be purely chic-with-edge - as I trawled through the old issues online a lot of covers and spreads from the 2000s onwards would pop up - and they are generally elegant, less trapped in time. Perhaps speaking to a conversative shift in clothing, or perhaps simply the magazine moving far from its original 'street fashion' orientation (taking snaps of stylists literally on the street) into the monied world of couture. It's gone from an almost pocket-sized pamphlet to a thick paving-stone slab of glossy adverts and fashion spreads, like Vogue on steroids.
One of the most elegant images I found in my trawl of early iD is the advert for Harrods
More iD spreads and covers that walk the sightly / unsightly line below
More on the style press
More on the secret thesis
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