Vogue (magazine)

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Vogue
Editor Alexandra Shulman
Anna Wintour
Aliona Doletskaya
Carine Roitfeld
Franca Sozzani
Kirstie Clements
Christiane Arp
Myung Hee Lee (이명희)
Priya Tanna
Kazuhiro Saito
Angelica Cheung
Elena Long (ΕΛΕΝΑ ΜΑΚΡΗ)
Eva Hughes
Yolanda Sacristan
Paula Mateus
Sérgio Ribas
Categories Fashion
Frequency Monthly
First issue 1892
Company Condé Nast Publications
Country United States
Language English
Website www.style.com/vogue

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 is said to suggest transient impermanent fashionability.

Contents

[edit] 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 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.[1] ”

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.[2]

[edit] 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.[3]

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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."[4] This allowed Wintour to keep a high circulation while discovering new trends that a broader audience could conceivably afford.[4] 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."[1]

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.[4] 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."[4]

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":

“ [W]hen Wintour was appointed head of Vogue, Grace Mirabella had been editor in chief for 17 years, and the magazine had grown complacent, coasting along in what one journalist derisively called "its beige years." Beige was the color Mirabella had used to paint over the red walls in Diana Vreeland's office, and the metaphor was apt: The magazine had become boring. Among Condé Nast executives, there was worry that the grand dame of fashion publications was losing ground to upstart Elle, which in just three years had reached a paid circulation of 851,000 to Vogue's stagnant 1.2 million. And so Condé Nast publisher Si Newhouse brought in the 38-year-old Wintour—who, through editor in chief positions at British Vogue and House & Garden, had become known not only for her cutting-edge visual sense but also for her ability to radically revamp a magazine—to shake things up.[5] ”

[edit] 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". [6] 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.[7]

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!"[8]

A spokesperson for Condé Nast released an official statement saying that, "Vogue does carry tobacco advertising. Beyond that we have no further comment".[8]

In April 2008, the American Vogue had a cover shot by famed photographer Annie Leibovitz, featuring supermodel Gisele Bündchen and LeBron James, a black basketball superstar. This was the third time that Vogue featured a male on the cover of the American issue, and the first time with a black man. Criticism was immediate from many commentators because it was perceived as a prejudiced depiction of James beside the much smaller Gisele in a pose reminiscent of King Kong carrying off Fay Wray.[9] Further criticism arose when the website Watching the Watchers analyzed the photo alongside the World War I recruitment poster titled Destroy This Mad Brute.[10]

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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 .[11]

[edit] American Editors-in-Chief

[edit] British Editors-in-Chief

  • Elspeth Champcommunal (1916–1922)
  • Dorothy Todd (1923–1925)
  • Alison Settle (1926–1935)
  • Elizabeth Penrose (1936–1939)
  • Audrey Withers (1940–1960)
  • Ailsa Garland (1961–1964)
  • Beatrix Miller (1965–1983)
  • Anna Wintour (1984–1987)
  • Elizabeth Tilberis (1988–1991)
  • Alexandra Shulman (1992 – present)

[edit] French Editors-in-Chief

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Weber, Caroline "Fashion-Books: Review of "IN VOGUE: The Illustrated History of the World’s Most Famous Fashion Magazine (Rizzoli)", New York Times, December 3, 2006. Accessed January 28, 2007.
  2. ^ Collins, Amy Fine, "Vanity Fair: The Early Years, 1914–1936", Vanity Fair. Accessed July 18, 2007.
  3. ^ Dwight, Eleanor. "The Divine Mrs. V", New York Magazine. Retrieved on 2007-11-18. 
  4. ^ a b c d Orecklin, Michelle "The Power List: Women in Fashion, #3 Anna Wintour". Time magazine, February 9, 2004. Retrieved January 29, 2007.
  5. ^ Fortini, Amanda "Defending Vogue's Evil Genius: The Brilliance of Anna Wintour". Posted Thursday, February 10, 2005. Retrieved January 29, 2007.
  6. ^ Betts, Kate "Anna Dearest". New York Times, April 13, 2003. Retrieved on January 29, 2007.
  7. ^ Wilson, Eric "The Devil Likes Attention". New York Times, December 28, 2006. Retrieved January 29, 2007.
  8. ^ a b Noveck, Jocelyn. "Fashion Mags Anger Some With Tobacco Ads", Associated press, 2007-05-30. Retrieved on 2007-11-18. 
  9. ^ [1]
  10. ^ [2]
  11. ^ Martin, Denise; December 14, 2006; Wintour documentary to hit the runway at A&E; Variety; retrieved March 3, 2007.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links