RIMOWA´s Queer Magazine
*300 Copies, 15 Portraits, Zero Apologies
written AMANDA MORTENSON
RIMOWA is publishing a magazine again. Because why just make suitcases when you can resurrect a 19th-century queer publication and throw it into a spiral of black-and-white portraits, quiet rebellion, and people called Shikeith.
It’s called Der Eigene (which translates, sort of, like The One Who Packs Their Own Bags and Also Doesn’t Explain Themselves) and it was born in 1896, two years before RIMOWA started making boxes for rich people who fear scratches. Now it’s on its fourth issue, back from the dead and better lit, thanks to photographer Collier Schorr who knows how to make identity look like a slowly smudged pencil line on expensive paper.
Collier Schorr, Self-Portrait
(c) RIMOWA
Issue Nr. 4, Der Eigene
(c) RIMOWA
Lío Mehiel
(c) RIMOWA
Roberta Colindrez
(c) RIMOWA
Shikeith
(c) RIMOWA
For this new edition, fifteen humans selected with casting director Nicola Kast—artists, dancers, lawyers, dreamers, possibly a Gemini or two—shot in classic Collier grayscale, two photos each, because one is never enough but three would be indulgent. There are questions too. The kind you answer while lying on a hotel bed in a towel, thinking about gender and snacks. Names drop like sequins: Amber Later, Chase Strangio, Lío Mehiel, Shikeith, and a Charlie Porter essay to send you home smarter (or at least with something to quote at brunch).
Limited to 300 copies because scarcity is sexy and so is paper. You can find it in places with intimidating staff and tasteful lighting: BookMarc in NYC, Andreas Murkudis in Berlin, Yvon Lambert in Paris, and Climax Books in London, which honestly sounds like a drag king in itself.
A magazine that side-eyes you while you pretend not to stare. The kind that travels light, carries heavy. Out June 24. Don’t run. Float.