Paper

Paper Magazine started in 1984 as a scrappy monthly chronicling New York's downtown arts, fashion, and nightlife scenes. Founders David Hershkovits and Kim Hastreiter built it from the ground up, giving space to emerging artists, musicians, and designers long before they hit the mainstream. The magazine's covers were never safe, think Lady Gaga in a meat dress before that was a thing, or Kanye West in his pre-Yeezy era. Its pages mixed high fashion with street style, club kids with gallery openings, all shot by photographers who pushed boundaries.

The brand's biggest cultural detonation came in November 2014 with the 'Break the Internet' issue featuring Kim Kardashian. Jean-Paul Goude's photograph of her balancing a champagne glass on her rear end went viral in a way that felt unprecedented at the time. The cover wasn't just a stunt, it was a masterclass in digital marketing, generating millions of shares and cementing Paper's reputation as a publication that understood the internet's appetite for provocation. After that, Paper leaned into the 'Break the Internet' concept as a recurring franchise, applying it to other covers and digital features designed to spark conversation.

In 2017, former Conde Nast executive Tom Florio acquired a majority stake, bringing corporate structure to the indie operation. Events and partnerships expanded, but the fundamental challenge of print economics never went away. When COVID-19 hit in 2020, Paper paused its physical edition indefinitely. The website and social channels kept running, but the print era, 36 years of glossy pages, ended without fanfare. As of today, Paper exists as a digital-only publication, still headquartered in New York, still covering culture with an insider's eye, though its future shape remains undefined. [edit]