The Revenge of the Smallest: How Crush Fanzine Bucks the Publishing Trends

Fashionista contributor Long Nguyen is the co-founder/style director of Flaunt.

The images projected onto a tan brick wall on the back of New York’s 48th Street Holiday Inn showed a blond guy wearing a dark blue cotton jumpsuit, mopping the floor of what seemed like a manufacturing building. It wasn’t a preview for a new movie release. It was surely not a commercial for the latest detergent or all-powerful mops.

Instead, it was a screening of the short film “Romance Language” by Jarrah Gurrie. The movie centers around an encounter between a blue collar office cleaner and his female counterpart during a late night work shift. Without exchanging any words due to language differences, he shares his meals with her.

The blond guy playing the cleaner is model Travis Lee Hanson. And the people gather on the roof watching him were there to celebrate Crush Fanzine’s Obsession # 5: Travis Lee Hanson.

Unlike any other publication, CrushFanzine’s entire issue–there have been five thus far–focuses on one subject. Travis is the newest topic; others have included actress Charlotte Rampling and model Arthur (who starred in the first issue.) It’s not about fashion as in: “a report on what’s new this season.” It’s about fashion as it’s seen through the eyes of an individual. Above all, it’s about the pleasure and the enjoyment a print product can have on its readers.

Less than two years ago, the death of print was cemented by media pundits. For a time, it seemed certain that these experts were correct; that the severe cuts in advertising budgets would surely at best hamper magazines and at worst threaten some with extinction. But magazines are making a comeback. And it’s the small circulation ones that are gaining strength as collector items, rather than mere commercial publications on newsstands.

Indeed, 2010 has seen the launch of Grey, which is principally photography, Test–where creative teams composed of the best talents in fashion, design, art and film produce an issue–and Candy, which features transgender fashion. There’s also Twin, a bi-annual art and fashion cloth-bound book, and Glass, a “collaborative intersection of art, fashion, music and design.” Most of these magazines are based in London.