Nina-Sophia Miralles: Glossy - debut author takes on Vogue and the Condé Nasties theartsdesk.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from theartsdesk.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
For 129 years, Vogue magazine has been the world’s most prestigious style bible. Nina-Sophia Miralles looks back at the moguls, models and eccentric editors that made it a success – even during the Blitz
The first edition of Vogue hit newsstands across America on 17 December 1892, priced at ten cents, with a black-and-white illustration of a debutante on the cover. It was the brainchild of Arthur Baldwin Turnure, a lawyer turned publisher and a member of New York high society.
Arthur dubbed Vogue the magazine ‘written by the smart set, for the smart set’. By making it a high-quality society magazine, he appealed to both middle-class readers, who would buy it to see what the rich were up to, and to upper-class readers, who bought it to feed their egos.
Creativity and Resilience
A woman stretches upwards, face tipped back, arms reaching towards the sky, her entire form shimmering silver. Shot in 1942, this striking solarised portrait isnât what comes to mind when you think of Lee Millerâs (1907-1977) wartime work for
British Vogue â hard hitting reportage showing weary nurses on the frontline, women accused of collaboration and ex-prisoners of the newly liberated Dachau concentration camp. But she also shot a great many fashion editorials for the magazine during this time â and this, less familiar, aspect to Millerâs wartime work is the focus of an exhibition opening at Farleyâs House and Garden.
So, do difficult times spur creativity or merely survival? It’s a question that’s been debated since time immemorial, often spot-lit when we find ourselves in the midst of challenging circumstances once more. During the first lockdown the question was posed again. How, people asked, will this time of disruption and loss affect what is being created and put out into the world? Will it lead to a visionary rethinking of systems and forms? Will it affect our art? Our culture? The clothes we wear? Like Shakespeare writing
King Lear during one plague or Isaac Newton discovering calculus during another, what new innovations or discoveries might be made here?