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Vogue
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The Most Famous Fashion Magazine in the World
Vogue magazine first appeared as a weekly American society paper in 1892. This American institution of international couture, created by Arthur Baldwin Turnure, is now published in nine countries; and widely respected as one of the premier mass-market publications celebrating fashion in all its incarnations. Turnure created Vogue to be a “dignified, authentic journal of society, fashion, and the ceremonial side of life'. While Vogue has evolved with the times over the last century, it has remained true to its roots.
In its earliest issues, the spreads of the latest haute fashion trends and accessory innovations were often accompanied by short stories, illustrations and poetry. However, a lack of advertisers forced the magazine to widen its scope. Although Vogues reputation was forged on haute couture features, its less expensive counterpart, ready-to-wear, would eventually gain a larger mass market appeal. Turnure, a cunning editor, was willing to reshape Vogue's appearance, in order to further its appeal. Subscriptions at the time hovered at around 5,000.
Today Vogue is the number one fashion publication in the world with a subscription rate just above 400,000 for its American publication alone. Vogue's celebration of the innovations of Haute Couture alongside the ready-to-wear interpretations of the same has forged the reputation it holds today, and maintained its appeal to advertisers and readers alike.
Following Turnure's death in 1906 the management style of the magazine changed significantly. For the next three years, instead of reinstating a single managing entity, Vogue became a collaboratively coordinated periodical. This management style ensued until the publications purchase by Conde Nast in 1909. Nast took off running refining the publication which now boasted a burgeoning circulation of 14,000. Not only did Vogue's format get completely reconfigured, but production became bimonthly, and talks began about spreading the publication to Europe.
Concordant with the rise of modern advertising, Nast realized the power of a simple image to attract consumers. By focusing on the covers and refining the intellectual and visual content, Conde Nast made Vogue into a fashion force that engaged a specific demographic. The Vogue covers (which were now in color), were coordinated by Nast, his Editor In Chief: Edna Woolman Chase, and his Art Director: Heyworth Campbell; and produced by some of the most innovative illustrators and artists of the day - George Wolfe Plank, Helen Dryden and George Brandt to name a few. These covers revolutionized fashion publications and are still collected and celebrated today for their historical significance, artistic value and beauty.
Under Editor Chase Vogue maintained a solid reputation providing middle and upper class America with intimate descriptions of society’s events while describing what was worn, and by whom. At the same time they began to market the patterns for the dresses featured in their pages. This was a fashion innovation on par with the rising hemlines and onset of active wear and Vogue had the market cornered. Women could feel like they not only had an ear to the ground but were doing so dressed to the nines in the current fashions. That middle-class women today are able to participate in fashion as it is happening is due in a large part to Vogues marketing ingenuity.
Vogue's international editions began with its initial distribution in Europe through a German agency. This edition, published in Germany, shipped throughout Europe as the war was disastrously affecting local publishing throughout Europe. Shortly, however, the German embargo during World War one prevented the fledgling publications export. Still, a European edition had proved to be a success and Conde Nast was not to be deterred. Hence, the birth of British Vogue. Its editor, Dorothy Todd, did much to further the magazines reputation as intellectually avant-garde, a reputation that British Vogue maintains to this day. Further international growth blossomed from there. In 1920 the first French language edition appeared, printed in London and edited by Michel de Brunhoff. Now appealing directly to the French cultural market with its artists and connoisseurs, Vogue rapidly gained prestige, attracting a veritable stable of the finest Art Deco artists as well as cementing participation from the finest couturiers. Although the forthcoming international editions retained editorial autonomy, for many years they relied on the magazine's French connections to stay up to date with the latest fashions in Paris, the center of the fashion world. (i)
Vogue's design was evolving as rapidly and successfully as its global reach.
"In 1923 the future great couturier Main Bocher joined the American team, as did the photographer Edward Steichen, who replaced Meyer's artistic flourishes with a geometrical rigor. A few years later Cecil Beaton would shift the balance towards a more surreal atmosphere, making Vogue a chronicler of the history of modern art. Although its articles were light, the accompanying illustrations were of the highest quality. Photography, treated like painting with veils of mist or smoke, favored the pictorial aesthetic that had been made fashionable by Adolf de Meyer." (ii)
Vogue expanded its avant-garde influence and appeal by continuously forging relationships with the rising stars of design, couture, arts and literature. The 1925 the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs gave birth to the geometric and industrial Art Deco age. This was reflected in Vogues covers, fonts, logotypes, typefaces, articles and ads, illustrated by Andre Marty, Georges Lepape, Eduardo Benito, Pierre Morgue, and Helen Dryden.
The 1930s brought financial misfortune not only to Conde Nast personally (he had entered the stock market with gusto only months before the October crash) but to Vogue’s editors advertisers and readers as well. Articles urged women to cultivate taste and buy with an eye for classic style rather than trying to maintain trends. Editor Chase’s maneuver allowed Vogue to pull through the financial crunch. But the publication did not emerge unscathed. These dark times brought the German edition to a halt (in 1928) and significantly handicapped the American edition. However, with the trouble brewing in Europe, darker times were as yet in store. At the onset of World War Two, Vogue, like virtually every other publication, had to scramble again in order to stay on its feet and persevere. The American edition took on a decidedly patriotic note while adjusting production and influence to allow for war shortages. French Vogue's Parisian staff stayed on as long as they could, reporting on the shows for the other editions and trying to maintain some of the former status quo. But with the fall of Paris they were forced into hiatus until the end of the war. Remarkably, the British edition stayed in production throughout the war and;
"...Carried ads for 'especially designed protection costumes ... of pure oiled silk ... available in dawn, apricot, rose, amethyst, Eau de Nil green and pastel pink. The wearer [could] cover a distance of 200 yards through mustard gas." It also advised readers that 'white accessories are very chic in wartime. They show up well in blackouts.'" (iii)
True to form, visual quality was maintained through the depression and World War II, with the participation of photographers such as Horst, Durst, Bruehl and Blumenfeld, and illustrators including Vertés, Bouet-Willaumez and Berard. When Conde Nast died in 1942 he was replaced by Iva Patcevitch, who made Alex Liberman, the former editor of the French magazine VU, art director. Liberman had fled Europe in the late 1930s to escape the War and landed the position as the assistant to Mehemed Fehmy Agha. Although his career with Vogue was short lived (Agha fired him) his success as Art Director extraordinaire guaranteed his career at Conde Nast. Liberman was responsible for hiring many rising stars in photography including Irving Penn, Toni Frissell, William Klein and Jerry Schatzberg. Likewise, he significantly influenced American women by helping to move fashion away from its previously formal dictates, and helped to cause a reevaluation of the modern woman. Liberman went on to become one of the most artistically influential names in American publishing, in charge of the design of the majority of the American publications of Conde Nast.
In January 1945 co-operation with Paris was re-established. The fifties brought the celebration of American style and a renaissance for American designers. Vogue's covers were almost always photographs, but inside was a cornucopia of outstanding advertising illustration from Rene Gruau, Marcel Vertes and the like. From 1962 to 1971, Diana Vreeland took on the role of Editor in Chief, working a more aggressive pop-art angle, with the likes of revolutionary photographers including Richard Avedon, Helmut Newton, Bob Richardson and David Bailey. The 1970s heralded a return to romanticism, and Vogue flourished with Editor Grace Mirabella, and the talented eyes of Duane Michals, Arthur Elgort, Chris von Wangenheim, Sarah Moon and Deborah Turbeville.
Edna Woolman Chase summed up the Vogue ideal just after World War Two, in a statement that is as astute today as it would have been 100 years ago.
"Fashion can be bought. Style one must possess."
And it all can be found within the pages of Vogue.
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i & iii) Time Magazine "Fifty Years on the Crest", November 1, 1954.
ii) Magazine Covers, Mitchell Beazley and David Crowley, Octopus Publishing; 2003.
iv) Duperray and Vidaling.Front Page. Weidenfeld & Nicolson; 2003.
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