PARIS LA

Dorothée Perret in Conversation

Dorothée Perret is the French-born, Los Angeles-based founder of Dope Press, independent publisher of artist books, art catalogs, and the innovative journal PARIS LA—which has been on the scene since 2008. With a background in clothing design, Perret was immersed in the fashion world for several years before shifting gears to print and online publication. We sat down with the editor-publisher-designer to discuss her history, her process, the value of paper, and what’s next for the house.

Which came first, PARIS LA or Dope Press? 

PARIS LA grew alongside Dope Press. I launched the magazine, and then to support it I created the press. Very quickly after the first issue, I started to make books with artists, which became much of the focus. One of my first books was with the artist Cédric Rivrain. What genuinely drives me with the press is the physicality of the print material. 

How did your past inform your publishing endeavor?

My background is in fashion. In the early 1990s I studied fashion design at Studio Berçot, a small private school in Paris. The director, Marie Rucki, has a long history with many great Parisian houses. She’s been in the business of fashion since the 1970s and knows the culture from the inside out and all of its shifts. For me, it was two years of learning to make fashion and a third one of in-house apprenticeship. I was in my early twenties, and it was a complete immersion into a fabulous world even though it was a rigorous environment and long hours. I had a lot of fun and forged great friendships while I learned how to work in a team environment under the pressure of time. Now I publish and design books and create a magazine with living artists which are very collaborative works as well. I would say one of the main common points I’ve experienced with both practices is to keep happy dreams alive.

What brand has inspired you throughout the ages?

I’ve always had an attachment to independent designers—the same kind of attachment I have with artists. I really believe fashion is an art of making clothes. Independent designers have more control over what they’re going to say and how they’re going to say it. Fashion is a huge field and there are many ways of doing it. Of course, it’s a commercial industry, so you must compromise on some level. To be independent and commercially successful are some of the keys to become a remarkable designer. Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons is the ultimate queen for me. 

Printing is a very pure form of creation. What excites you about this process?

Technically there are different methods of printing; for instance, offset and digital. For our last issue—a special edition on women and non-binary artists—I switched to digital for economic reasons, among others. I see the magazine as having a periodicity—it’s a capsule of time, so I feel digital printing makes sense in this context. It’s quick and less expensive. Whereas with the books, we focus on the work of an artist or an author. That, to me, is timeless and requires more attention. We’ve worked on books with artists like Alex Hubbard, Oscar Tuazon, Elias Hansen, K8 Hardy, Liz Craft, Pentti Monkkonen, and Sara Sachs and look forward to future relationships with galleries and museums. The way I work as a magazine editor and publisher is very different than putting together an artist’s book. I enjoy both formats—they’re different and I wouldn’t pick one over the other. I really like that there’s this discrepancy within the press somehow. Both formats are complementary in the end. 

Paper talks, it has a value. What paper can do is significant on many levels. When I switched from making clothes to making books, paper was the link between the two practices. I saw that what fabric does to clothes, paper does to books and magazines. It’s a very tactile experience. You need to touch it, and there is meaning behind the composition, the weight, and the finish. I may not be making clothing anymore, but I create objects that are not only sensitive to form but combine content and an aesthetic. 

We print in Belgium, with the same printer for over fifteen years. For me, the relationship with the printer is extremely important and one based on mutual trust and respect. 

How do you approach the design and editing process?

I worked with the designer Alexandra Ruiz on the layout for the first ten years, and over the last four years following her departure, I oversee the design myself. As a former designer, I was always sensitive to design, so I took some classes at ArtCenter College of Design to hone my skills. It has been quite a journey from fashion to being an editor and publisher and now a designer. It brings all my knowledge and experience together. When I first started, I didn’t really know what I was doing with the magazine. I had a strong impulse, but it has refined over time. You know, it’s like cooking. When you make the same recipe, it becomes easier, and over time you can begin to spice and switch things up.

Here in Los Angeles, it’s just me with Barlo Perry, the associate editor. When I started the magazine in 2008, I was living in Paris. He contacted me after the eighth issue was published because he found a few errors and naturally offered his services. I really don’t regret replying to his email. The way we work together is complementary, yet quite organic.

What is your method of creating PARIS LA magazine?

Each issue is different. We work around a theme and invite contributors accordingly. Our contributors are writers, artists, curators, and photographers. As an editor, I create the space, and then I invite people over and let them do what they do best. When I invite people to contribute to a specific theme, it’s because I know they’re more knowledgeable on that theme than I am. The way I work with PARIS LA is like a personal research project. Every time I choose a theme, it’s because I’m curious and want to ask questions about it. I like to challenge myself and not sit on what I already know. 

How does the research element of PARIS LA juxtapose with the commercial side?

I am not a businessperson. I don’t dwell on the business side, which, as I’ve learned living in America, might not be the best thing [laughs]. My relationship with the commercial side of PARIS LA is balanced by my ongoing desire to learn new things. I see the limit now, realizing that when you run a small press you still need to have a sense of commerce to generate revenue. You can be creative, it doesn’t need to be advertising, you can find other sources of income. Especially nowadays when old-school models are imploding everywhere you look.

As a former fashion designer, what signaled your shift towards art and creating a magazine focused on art?

Before I started to learn fashion, I enrolled for a semester on Modern Literature at the Sorbonne. So, you can say that the art focus either as a language or a visual form was always there, but I never really spent enough time with it as a young person. I was too busy making clothes and having fun. At some point in my late twenties, I felt the urge to engage again with art per se. The way I learned fashion was less about thought and more about making, and I found focusing on art as a discipline of knowledge could nourish my brain and fulfill my senses. I don’t regret the switch—it helped me to better appreciate fashion as an art form as well. With the magazine, at the beginning, we had some fashion stories. But I quickly dropped them because it requires too much politics and time to invest in producing photoshoots. And it wasn’t really what I wanted to do with the magazine. For me, again, it was about doing a serious research project related to the idea of learning and transmitting, like in academia. 

What is your perception of the ever-breaking barrier between art and fashion?

Fashion as an artistic field is very much about the moment. At the same time, if you look at the industry herd, they are pretty much looking back in time. The references are often about old histories, even though to be “fashionable” is to be ahead of time. In the art world, of course, it’s also about histories, past and present, but somehow it’s about debunking histories and finding the cracks in between to create new paths and possibilities. There is much more critical thinking that circles this discipline, and I appreciate that aspect very much.

This sentiment ties to our theme of “Archival Ephemera.” How do you see art in terms of time?

The art I enjoy escapes the notion of time and touches on universal concepts of birth, death, pain, love, joy, etc.… 

Do you archive the publications and contributions to PARIS LA? 

We do, both physical and digital archiving. The print issues of PARIS LA are in the archive of the Bibliothèque Kandinsky at Centre Pompidou in Paris. I’m also a great defender of the open source, so I offer digital copies of past issues when scholars make requests for academic purposes. And our online platform PARIS-LA.com publishes various content from the print issues. 

How did your research on art come to center on the two cities of Paris and Los Angeles?

I visited L.A. in early 2000 and naturally fell in love with the city. To me Los Angeles is completely American in the best possible way. It’s the West Coast—you must cross the entire country to come here and reinvent yourself. I don’t look back towards Europe when I’m in L.A. Unlike New York, which feels very much like an extension of Europe, just with more nerves. I really enjoy what L.A. has to offer in terms of community and art. It has always been a city of the arts, even if it was a little less in your face than it is now. There is a long tradition of artists coming to L.A. to make art and of great institutions and schools to support it. The title PARIS LA came not only through my interest looking at the L.A. art scene from Paris. When I started the magazine in 2008, it was a time when the internet made us understand clearly that we were part of a global civilization. Globalization has been here in some form since the sixteenth century, but the internet just accelerated everything and flattened notions of time and distance between places and people. That’s where the title came from, with this idea to create a transversal line in between scenes to help keep some cracks open and alive. 

What physically brought you to Los Angeles?

I met my husband, who’s American, in Paris. He moved to Paris in 2006, and we started a family there. Then, at some point, with having kids and publishing PARIS LA, I thought it made sense to move to L.A. and raise the kids to have an American experience, not just French. 

Where do you see PARIS LA fitting into the magazine landscape?

In my youth I consumed a lot of independent publications like The Face, Purple, i-D, Dazed, and so on. They certainly had an impact on me on how to make a magazine that breaks old values and shakes up conventional aesthetics. I would say that I’m an “outsider-insider”—I know the scene, I’ve grown up in it, but I have also positioned myself with one foot outside. I have a bit of a detective mind questioning my surroundings and seeking fruitful enigmas. PARIS LA is uncategorical and indefinable within the landscape as I know it. I love to keep this mystery going— the joy of being an eternal paradox! 

How did the pandemic shift your way of working on PARIS LA?

I believe as a world nation, we all had to think and reimagine ways of doing and being and living. With my family we left L.A. and moved to the Pacific Northwest, in the rainforest. As everything was happening online, and everyone was sheltering, we took the extreme position of isolating ourselves in the middle of nowhere for a year. Even though there were difficult moments being so far from people, I felt it was a good place to focus on myself and my work. I wouldn’t make that move now, as I still want to relate to the scene, visiting people and seeing shows, but I can see myself in this remote cabin again when I’m much older. 

Can you give us a sneak peek into the focus of the next issue of PARIS LA?

We are developing an issue on “performance.” It’s a field that’s full of diversity, life, and passion—a unique form of interaction between art and its audience. I’m very excited about this choice and I feel there will be a lot of fascinating things to share with our audience.