Dazed: 30 Years Confused: The Covers

Celebrating 30 years of Dazed’s boundary-pushing storytelling at the forefront of youth culture, this book reveals the past, present, and future of Dazed through its bold cover designs and manifesto-like headlines. In 1991, the first issue of Dazed & Confused was released as a single A2 foldout newsprint by a then 20-year-old Jefferson Hack and the photographer Rankin. Now, 30 years later, what began as a print magazine has gone on to provoke a change in consciousness, becoming a vital cultural manifesto for today. Created for an audience that wants to be both informed and inspired to imagine, its radical approach to publishing means that Dazed is still at the forefront of youth culture today. Split into ten chapters—taken from the magazine’s most memorable cover lines—this book explores how these early manifestos reflect the magazine’s ethos today. Time-traveling from the ’90s to now, a new generation of image makers sit side by side with archival materials to showcase how Dazed has always interpreted celebrity through its own boundary-pushing lens: from Alexander McQueen and David Bowie’s first official, recorded conversation and the designer’s “Fashion-Able?” cover, to a rare appearance and guest-edit by Chelsea Manning, to rapper Young Thug shot by Harley Weir.