THE LISSOME N°6: Deep Beauty

What is beauty?

The artist Agnes Martin once described beauty as the mystery of life. For thinkers, artists and wisdom seekers throughout history, beauty has belonged to the same realm as truth, goodness or love. And yet today, it can feel like an uneasy word. Hollowed out by the advertising and entertainment industries, beauty is often reduced to surface appeal or desire engineered for consumption. So much around us claims to be beautiful, especially in this time of constant acceleration and visual saturation. But what is beauty, really? And what is its role in our lives, in our human experience?

The question feels urgent as we are living through a period of profound technological, ecological and cultural transformation, while our attention is increasingly fragmented and many of the forces shaping our lives pull us towards speed, abstraction and disconnection. What makes beauty relevant in our time?

Across 144 pages of essays, conversations, photography, art and visual storytelling, Deep Beauty follows this question into unexpected places: from Arizona Muse reflecting on the difference between looking pretty and living in beauty, to the astonishing diversity of sheep and the terroir of wool; from a journey into Taiwan’s world of wild tea to the spells, dreams and prayers once woven into cloth. The Major Arcana is reimagined as a journey towards stewardship, while William Morris takes us back to a radical understanding of beauty as inseparable from everyday life, craft and social change. The Major Arcana is reimagined as a journey towards stewardship, while William Morris takes us back to a radical understanding of beauty as inseparable from everyday life, craft and social change. From there, Beauty as World-Making traces a darker path from the Futurists’ intoxication with speed to the increasingly authoritarian and anti-democratic currents emerging from Silicon Valley – and asks what kind of future we are being persuaded to desire.

Deep Beauty invites us to take beauty seriously. As something luminous and unsettling, intimate and political. As a way of paying attention. As a practice through which we might become more alive to what surrounds us, more discerning about what asks for our desire, and more capable of imagining what else might be possible.

Pre-order Deep Beauty
Deep Beauty goes to print on 1 October 2026. Pre-orders are expected to ship between late October and early November 2026. Pre-order price €22.50 until 20 September / regular price €25.

Please note: The images shown are miniature printouts from the final layout. Images of the finished magazine will follow after printing.

Format:

The Lissome is an independently published, high-quality print magazine made to be kept and enjoyed slowly. Limited print edition, 144 pages
, 29 × 21 cm
.

Mindfully-Made:

The Lissome is produced locally in Berlin by Druckhaus Sportflieger, a FSC® certified printer renowned for its high-quality and craftsmanship. The magazine is printed on EU Ecolabel and FSC®-certified papers (Munken Print White and Holmen TRND).

Shipping rates:
Standard shipping for one magazine is €1.90 within Germany, €3.90 within the EU and UK, €4.90 to Switzerland, €6.90 to Australia and €7.90 to the USA. Additional shipping options, including tracked shipping, are available at checkout.

Shipping:

Orders will ship out within 1 to 3 business days.

All orders are shipped directly from Berlin by our shipping partner OML. Please note that we will not be able to help locate your order or reimburse you for lost or damaged shipment should you choose a shipping option without tracking (for shipments outside of Germany).