Maxime Büchi & Alex Binnie - It's a Lifetime Thing

With his magazine Sang Bleu, Swiss creative director Maxime Büchi focuses on a very sophisticated mix of art, fashion, literature, tattooing, body modification, and fetish. It is only natural that Maxime got into tattooing himself. “It’s only now that I can see the smoke clearly, but it’s a lifetime thing," he says. Influenced by a background in graphic design and typography, he developed a distinct style featuring clean, geometric lines and occidental illustration. When we asked him to introduce someone who he considers avant-garde, it came as no surprise that he came up with tattoo legend Alex Binnie, founder of Into You, arguably London’s most famous tattoo studio. Alex was a true pioneer when he started his own place in 1993 after tattooing in Hollywood for a couple of years. “At that point, Into You was pretty much the first truly custom tattoo shop in London," he says. "The whole tattoo landscape was completely different then. There were no magazines. There were hardly any shops. Tattooing was an underground scene.” As much as he still enjoys tattooing, the whole change of scene got Alex thinking about producing art on surfaces other than the human body. In 2000, he began experimenting with silk screens, before ultimately turning to woodcuts. Developing even more ways of expressing an artistic vision is what Maxime pursues with his latest publication Novembre, a magazine about fashion and contemporary art from Switzerland.

Editorial Lead by Kitty Bolhoefer / Filming & Photos by Fridolin Schöpper / Editing by Konterfei / Music by Bunnystripes