OUGD601: The Early Days of Vogue

VOGUE IN THE EARLY DAYS, a short film by Laird Borrello-Presson, edited by Jesse Threatt for 125 Years of Vogue

• Started by Arthur Baldwin Turner in 1892 as a weekly journal of fashion and society
• Ivy league educated club man, born into money and upmarket society (Princeton grad & founded of the Grolier Club)
• Wanted to celebrate the ‘ceremonial side of life’, as well as society and fashion for both men and women
• Predominantly created for the leisure class, by the leisure class
• Vogue got purchased in 1909 by Conde Nast due to its allure and appeal
• Conde Nast were the first publishing house to tap into the ‘special interest publication’, paving a way for contemporary magazines to be founded on this principle. Nast valued reader engagement over circulation, so from a business perspective wanted to keep lifelong consumers, as well as naturally growing to the right interest demographic
• The look of the magazine from conception was all illustrated and hand painted. It took a long time for photographic techniques to come into the pages Vogue, or even when it did, make the cover.
• The significance of illustration is not only more in tune with the times (as in there were few other options) but also places beauty and aesthetic high up Vogue’s intention list, wanting to instantly convey beauty and ‘art’ to the reader. The details, colour ways and subject content of the illustrations demonstrated a high level of skill, concept and opportunity 
• Despite Vogue being created by the upper class of society, the first editor in Chief Josephine Reading did contest to societies expectations of gender, her station in life and the restrictions of dress. Sports were an important part of Reading’s life so she inputted her own passions into the magazine, defining the ‘Vogue woman’ as modern and addicted to speed (in any context). Designers were creating ‘sports wear’ for women at the time which Reading often chose to feature over more restrictive attire (corsets etc) - almost foreshadowing the modern woman
• Vogue’s conception coincided with the invention of the bicycle which was featured heavily by Reading
• ‘As seen by him’ and ‘the well dressed man’ were advertised as a point of destinction, so the early editions were definitely not just for women
• The cover of the second issue was the first of many to feature a ‘dapper man and woman’, dressed as taste-makers for the times