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Richard Avedon, Herb Ritts, Norman Parkinson, Annie Leibovitz, shifted the magazine’s focus more to
Helmut Newton, and Peter Lindberg, among others, shot what are now contemporary fashion and editorial
recognized as iconic Vogue cover images. features that openly discussed sexuality.
Aside from the photography and a stunning array of beautiful high Toward this end, Vogue extended coverage
fashion models, Vogue’s covers are revolutionary in other ways, as well. to include East Village boutiques and
The April 1944 cover featured Salvador Dalí’s signature surrealist features with “downtown” personalities; a
dystopian landscape for its Mid-Spring Fashion issue. Vogue put its first radical departure for a magazine focused
African American model, Beverly Johnson, on the cover of its August on high-end fashion and lifestyles of the
1974 issue. rich and famous.
Vogue covers underwent another seismic shift when Anna Wintour In the 1970s, Vogue underwent yet
took over as editor in 1988. Wintour immediately transformed Vogue another extensive editorial and stylistic
covers by emphasizing the woman’s body, rather than just her face, and shift under Grace Mirabella. Mirabella
is credited with introducing Hollywood actresses and other prominent states that she was chosen to change Vogue
celebrities, instead of just traditional fashion models, to the covers of Diana Vreeland during her because “women weren’t interested in
Vogue. This dramatic departure for a serious fashion magazine tenure as editor-in-chief reading about or buying clothes that
brought the cult of celebrity to magazine covers of publications around in the 1960s served no purpose in their changing lives.”
the world. She was selected to make the magazine
appeal to “the free, working,
Editorial Leadership “liberated” woman of the
Since Nast’s death in the early 1940s, seventies. Mirabella changed
Vogue has seen a turnover of highly the magazine by adding text
influential editors at the helm, with interviews, arts coverage,
switched-out to keep the maga- and serious health pieces.
zine relevant in fast-changing When that type of stylistic
times for fashion and women. change fell out of favor in the
Edna Woolman Chase, who 1980s, Mirabella was fired,
started out at Conde Nast replaced by still current editor,
addressing envelopes, held her Anna Wintour, who, like
tenure as Editor of Vogue the Vogue, has become a cultural
longest: 37 years. When she icon and powerhouse in the
stepped down in 1952, Jessica world of fashion.
Daves took over as editor-in-
chief to reign over the decade Anna Wintour
known as the magazine’s “power- Anna Wintour became
ful years.” As Author Rebecca C. Editor of Vogue in 1988. With
Tuite noted in In Vogue: The the magazine undergoing
Vogue’s first Jessica Daves Years, “Daves led a editorial change every 10 years
Editor-in-Chief, quiet charge for excellence during to keep pace with the times,
Edna Woolman Chase one of the most challenging, what Vogue needed was a vision
transformative, and rich decades of its own.
in the magazine’s history.” Daves believed that “taste is Born in Hampstead,
something that can be taught and learned”, and she edited The November 1, 1966 cover of Vogue which London in 1949 , Wintour was
Vogue with the conviction that it should be “a vehicle to involved a very expensive photoshoot with the influenced by fashion reading
educate public taste.” While fashion coverage remained a popular model Veruschka Von Lehndorff with issues of Seventeen sent to her
priority, Daves also elevated the written content of American photographer Richard Avedon by her grandmother in the
Vogue, particularly championing more robust arts and United States and as a regular
literature features. viewer of Cathy McGowan on
The Daves era of Vogue came to the 1960s pop music television show, Ready Steady Go!
an end in 1962, when Diana
Vreeland joined the magazine (first
as associate editor, and then,
following Daves’s departure in
December 1962, as editor-in-chief).
The two women had diametrically
opposed approaches to editing
Vogue: Daves famously declared, “I
respect fashion ... it is exciting ...
but I am annoyed at people who
treat it as a joke, who constantly
take sledgehammers to it ... it’s a
very serious business.” On the other
hand, Vreeland believed, as she was
quoted as telling art director
Alexander Liberman, “it’s only Jennifer Daves, whose decade
entertainment,” and conversely led of service was called the
the magazine into a period of youth “Decade of Daves”
and vitality, but also extravagance, luxury, and excess. A five-week
shoot in Japan with photographer Richard Avedon and ‘60s It-girl
Veruschka Von Lehndorff was rumored to have cost $1 million.
American Vogue under the leadership of Diana Vreeland in the
1960s became the symbol of a new era – more creative, emancipated,
and sexy. To appeal to the youth of the sexual revolution, Vreeland Vogue Editor-in-Chief since 1988, Anna Wintour

32 Journal of Antiques and Collectibles