Everything about Vogue Magazine totally explained
Vogue is a
fashion and lifestyle
magazine published in nine countries by
Condé Nast Publications. The American version of Vogue is edited by
Anna Wintour, an Englishwoman who is a longtime resident of New York City. Each month, Vogue publishes a magazine based entirely on fashion, life and design. Vogue is so named because it's said to suggest transient impermanent fashionability.
History
Vogue was described by book critic Caroline Weber in
The New York Times in December 2006 as "the world's most influential
fashion magazine":
Vogue was founded by Arthur Baldwin Turnure in 1892. When he passed away in 1909, Conde Nast picked it up and slowly began growing the publication. Today, there are different editions of
Vogue published around the world:
Australia,
Brazil,
China,
France,
Germany,
Greece,
India,
Italy,
Japan,
Korea,
Mexico,
Portugal,
Russia,
Spain,
Switzerland,
Taiwan,
United Kingdom and the
United States.
Under the ownership of New York-based magazine publisher Condé Nast and through a succession of women editors,
Vogue is most famous as a presenter of images of high fashion and high society, but it also publishes writings on art, culture, politics, and ideas. On the way, it has helped to enshrine the
fashion model as
celebrity.
Vogue is regularly criticized, along with the fashion industry it writes about, for valuing wealth, social connections, and low body weight over more noble achievements. The magazine celebrated its 114th birthday in 2006.
The magazine surged in subscriptions during the
Depression and
World War II, a period during which noted critic and former
Vanity Fair editor
Frank Crowninshield served as its editor, having been moved over from
Vanity Fair by publisher
Condé Nast.
1960s
In the 1960s, with editor in chief and personality
Diana Vreeland in charge, the magazine rose to the occasion of this candy-colored, youth-oriented decade of
sexual revolution by focusing more on the fashions of the times, through daringly playful, theatrical, and straightforwardly sexual editorial features.
Vogue also continued making household names out of models, a practice that continued with
Suzy Parker,
Twiggy,
Penelope Tree, and others.
1970s-1980s
Under the tenure of editor-in-chief
Grace Mirabella through the 1970s and 1980s, the bimonthly magazine became a monthly, and the revolutionary air of the sixties gave way to more practical clothing. The magazine's female audience was no longer in the kitchen dreaming of a better life. It was heading out every morning for work, and editorial changes reflected this new reality.
Present day
The current editor-in-chief of American
Vogue is Anna Wintour, noted for her trademark bob and her practice of wearing sunglasses indoors. Since taking over in 1988, Wintour has worked to protect the magazine's No. 1 status among fashion publications in term of reputation. In order to do so, she brought the magazine down from what Time called "its Olympian heights, acknowledging that trends are as likely to start from the ground as be decreed from on high." This allowed Wintour to keep a high circulation while discovering new trends that a broader audience could conceivably afford. For example, the inaugural cover of the magazine under Wintour's editorship featured a three-quarter-length photograph of a model wearing a bejeweled Christian Lacroix jacket and a pair of jeans, departing from her predecessors' tendency to portray a woman’s face alone, which according to the Times' Weber, gave "greater importance to both her clothing and her body. This image also promoted a new form of chic by combining jeans with haute couture. Wintour’s debut cover brokered a class-mass rapprochement that informs modern fashion to this day."
Wintour's
Vogue also aggressively nurtures new design talent, and her presence at fashion shows is often taken as an indicator of the designer's profile within the industry. In 2003, she joined the
Council of Fashion Designers of America in creating a fund that provides money and guidance to at least two emerging designers each year. This has built loyalty among the emerging new star designers, and helped preserve the magazine's dominant position of influence through what
Time called her own "considerable influence over American fashion. Runway shows don't start until she arrives. Designers succeed because she anoints them. Trends are created or crippled on her command."
The contrast of Wintour's vision with her predecessor has been noted as striking by observers, from both her critics and defenders. Amanda Fortini, fashion and style contributor to
Slate argued that "during her tenure,
Vogue has been enormously successful":
Criticism
As Wintour came to personify the magazine's image, she and
Vogue drew critics. Wintour's one-time assistant at the magazine,
Lauren Weisberger, authored a
roman à clef entitled
The Devil Wears Prada, a best-selling novel published in 2003 which was made into a highly successful,
Academy Award-nominated
film in 2006. The central character resembled Weisberger, and her boss was a powerful editor-in-chief of a fictionalized version of
Vogue. The novel portrays a magazine ruled by "the Antichrist and her coterie of fashionistas, who exist on cigarettes, Diet Dr. Pepper, and mixed green salads", according to a review in the
New York Times. The editor who personifies the magazine she runs is described by Weisberger as being "an empty, shallow, bitter woman who has tons and tons of gorgeous clothes and not much else". However, the success of both the novel and the film have brought new attention from a wide global audience to the power and glamor of the magazine, and the industry it continues to lead.
In 2007,
Vogue drew criticism from the anti-smoking group, "Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids", for carrying tobacco advertisements in the magazine. The group claims that volunteers sent the magazine more than 8,000 protest e-mails or faxes regarding the ads. The group also claimed that in response, they received scribbled notes faxed back on letters that had been addressed to editor Anna Wintour stating, "Will you stop? You're killing trees!"
A spokesperson for Condé Nast released an official statement saying that, "
Vogue does carry tobacco advertising. Beyond that we've no further comment". Further criticism arose when the website
Watching the Watchers analyzed the photo alongside the World War I recruitment poster titled
Destroy This Mad Brute.
Other editions
In 2005, Condé Nast launched
Men's Vogue and announced plans for an American version of
Vogue Living launching in late fall of 2006 (there is currently an edition in Australia).
Condé Nast Publications also publishes
Teen Vogue, a version of the magazine for teen girls, the Seventeen demographic, in the United States.
South Korea and
Australia has a
Vogue Girl magazine (currently suspended from further publication), in addition to
Vogue Living and
Vogue Entertaining + Travel.
Vogue Hommes International is an international men's fashion magazine based in Paris, France, and
L'uomo Vogue is the Italian men's version. Other Italian versions of
Vogue include
Vogue Casa and
Bambini Vogue.
Until 1961, Vogue was also the publisher of
Vogue Patterns, a home sewing pattern company. It was sold to
Butterick Publishing which also licensed the Vogue name.
October 2007 saw the recent launch of
Vogue India, which featured
Gemma Ward,
Bipasha Basu, and
Priyanka Chopra on the cover.
Media coverage of Vogue
A & E IndieFilms and
R. J. Cutler are to shoot a feature-length
documentary chronicling the making of
Vogue's September issue. Cutler had approached Wintour in 2004 and will direct the untitled pic which will be shot over eight months as Wintour prepares the fall fashion issue, known in the industry as the "fashion bible". The filmmakers plan to have it completed in 2008
.
Editors-in-Chief
French Editors-in-Chief
Colombe Pringle (1987–1994)
Joan Juliet Buck (1994–2001)
Carine Roitfeld (2001 – present)Further Information
Get more info on 'Vogue Magazine'.
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