It's Vogue's 90th birthday this month. One of there things they've done to celebrate is this brilliant, brilliant website which has pretty much every cover from the last 90 years. You can search by date, model or photographer.
I love Vogue. I've always loved Vogue, ever since I was way to young to be going into WHSmith and buying women's fashion magazines.
Vogue is a creative institution. Always worth buying. Get past the ads and the celeb stuff and you'll always find an article about some obscure British pottery maker. Or a French quilt person (not sure what the proper name is for that...). Or a new Italian furniture designer.
Vogue is a creative power house. Vogue is one of those things that leads not follows. Vogue is powerful. Very powerful, still, after all this time.
Sometimes the covers are Me2 like a lot of magazines, but often they're great. Often they're "event" covers. This is the cover from March 1952, the issue that covers King George's death.
Fantastic isn't it?
That's such a powerful piece of graphic design. It's not just the fact that it's blank either, the choice of colour is fantastic. Purple is an accepted religious colour for mourning, it's also regal and at the same time glamorous and stylish. That colour is working hard. It feels like mouring, it says Royal and it's still Vogue. That's a great piece of communication.
As always the inside of these old magazines is good fun too. Funny how people complain that all fashion ads look the same these days. They all looked the same 60 years ago too.
All those ladies have the same waist. Or is it all one model? There are a hell of a lot of ads in this issue, many, many more than in todays Vogue. When we do eventually get to the content, take a look at this spread.
Gorgeous isn't it? Again, really simple, powerful communication. Stunning photography, great headline.
We love Vogue in the office. It's inspirational and it looks great on our new shelves.
Have you seen the Unseen Vogue book? Fascinating outtakes, nicely presented:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Unseen-Vogue-History-Fashion-Photography/dp/0316860239/sr=8-2/qid=1162978449/ref=sr_1_2/026-0237688-2181228?ie=UTF8&s=books
We used it as an incentive for a DM campaign once so managed to swipe a spare. I'll blog it sometime.
Posted by: Richard | Nov 08, 2006 at 09:38