About Me
Vogue Magazine is widely viewed as one of the most influential fashion and style publications in the world. It was described by book critic Caroline Weber in the New York Times in December 2006 as "the world's most influential fashion magazine":Vogue is to our era what the idea of God was, in Voltaire’s famous parlance, to his: if it didn’t exist, we would have to invent it. Revered for its editorial excellence and its visual panache, the magazine has long functioned as a bible for anyone worshiping at the altar of luxury, celebrity and style. And while we perhaps take for granted the extent to which this trinity dominates consumer culture today, Vogue’s role in catalyzing its rise to pre-eminence cannot be underestimated.Today, there are different editions of Vogue published around the world: Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Korea, Japan, Mexico, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, the United Kingdom and the United States. In 1983 Brooke Shields appeared on the cover of the September issue of the Paris edition, the October and November issues of American VOGUE and the December edition of Italian VOGUE. 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 surged in subscriptions during the depression and World War II. Its photography at the time reflected the imagery of contemporaneous Hollywood films: staged and luxurious. Vogue is celebrating it's 90th birthday this year.The historic relationship between Vogue and supermodels began with top fashion model Lisa Fonssagrives who appeared on over 200 Vogue covers. At the height of her career, Fonssagrives could be both sophisticated and yet a cook, something with which every American woman could identify. Her presence in nearly every fashion magazine from the 1930s to the 1950s, from Town & Country, Life, Vogue, and the original Vanity Fair to the cover of Time helped to build her name recognition, and the importance of Vogue in helping a model reach "supermodel" status. Being on the cover of Vogue became a symbol of success for models. Regular appearances on the cover of Vogue establishes supermodels such as Gemma Ward, Jessica Stam, and Daria Werbowy. Multiple Vogue covers becomes a cornerstone of being considered a supermodel.But Vogue truly hit its stride under the leadership of editor-in-chief Jessica Daves and art director Alexander Liberman, when it began to publish the work of photographers Irving Penn and Richard Avedon. Penn and Avedon broke decisively with the stuffy conventions of previous fashion photography: Penn by a stripped-down minimalism that left his subjects in bare studios against stark empty backgrounds; Avedon by breaking out of the confines of dispassionate, static studio tableaux and shooting dynamic pictures of models at the height of emotion and in the middle of action. The influence of both approaches to fashion photography can still be seen in the pages of every fashion magazine today.In the 1960s, with famed 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 exciting fashions of the times, through daringly playful, theatrical, and straightforwardly sexual editorial features. Vogue also continued making household names out of pretty faces, a practice that continued with Suzy Parker, Twiggy, Penelope Tree, and others.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.The current editor-in-chief of American Vogue is Anna Wintour, noted for her trademark bob and her practice of wearing sunglasses indoors. Wintour's Vogue 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. Wintour's notoriously demanding personality at Vogue was the subject of a roman à clef titled The Devil Wears Prada, which has also been made into a film.One sign of Vogue's continuing success is the number of advertising pages it manages to sell, which contributes to its reputation as the fashionista's doorstop: as one reviewer on Amazon.com points out, the September issue, which covers fall fashion, can weigh in at over 700 pages.
Source: Wikipedia
Sept 15, 1933
The model (Mademoiselle Koopman) and the dress (by Augusta Bernard) appear against a backdrop designed to highlight the figure in the characteristic manner of Hoyningen-Huene.**The photographer, George Hoyningen-Huene, had an obsession: to convey everything he possibly could about fashion, including its ability to generate emotion through gesture and setting. And all of this he meant to transmit through photography.**Rather than merely making a pictorial record of the clothing worn by his models, he would integrate the posed model into an evocative scene through atmosphere, lighting, and background.**
Hoyningen-Huene created in his studios the illusion that behind his models there existed a beach with sun and sand. He introduced onto the set automobiles, chairs, plants, sunshades - whatever might suggest real life and real fashions being shot outdoors. One of his most famous pictures, published in July 1930, shows a couple in bathing suits who seem to be on a diving board looking out over the sea. It was in fact taken on the roof of Vogue's photo studio on the Champs-Elysees in Paris. The models were seated on boxes, and the low wall surrounding the roof, rendered slightly out of focus, simulated the sea and the horizon.**This photo of a pair of bathers, one of Hoyningen-Huene's most popular pictures, was taken at the Paris studios and was published in small size. The male model was Huene's assistant, Horst P. Horst, who went on to become an incredible fashion photographer in his own right.**
The defining characteristic of Cecil Beaton's work and his contribution to fashion photography was the romanticism of the backgrounds and the use of exotic supporting materials, such as folded gauze, screens, and a profusion of flowers. With their theatrical and surreal mise-en-scenes, Beaton's pictures were considered a return to the style of Baron de Meyer.**
This picture is from Vogue magazine, January 1, 1969 issue. The model is Lauren Hutton dressed in a body stocking. Photograph by Richard Avedon.**
**The text supporting the photographs on this page was taken from a new book dedicated to Vogue and its remarkable photographers, which I recently purchased and wanted to share with all of you.FAIR USE NOTICE: This tribute may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational or entertainment purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, human nature, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. This material is distributed without profit.
