On December 17th, 1892 the first issue of a little gazette entitled Vogue was launched.
It was a weekly with Arthur B. Turnure named as publisher, Harry McVickar as art director, and Mrs Josephine Redding as editor. The publisher declared that:
“The definitive object is the establishment of a dignified authentic journal of society, fashion and the ceremonial side of life, that is to be for the present, mainly pictorial”. (Vogue, December 17th, 1892)
Behind Vogue there is the story of the high society of New York, the story of the upper classes and their life style; it was a magazine concerned to reflect their ideas, to report their activities, to set an example, the only magazine conceived to set out an elite. Behind Vogue there is the story of the American fashion industry, and above all, there is the story of an ambitious businessman like Condé Nast, who bought the magazine in 1909, after four years of negotiations.
Condé Nast was only 36 when he acquired Vogue.
He had begun his business working for the Collier’s Weekly owned by the father of a close friend. In 1905, he was promoted to business manager. While working there, in 1904 he became vice-president of the Home Pattern Company. Women’s dress patterns had become big business since the invention of the sewing machine in 1846. He had plenty of the ideas and the ambition to go farther…
By the beginning of 1910 the new Nast Vogue had taken shape: he cut the magazine publication schedule from weekly to fortnightly (with the February 15, 1910 issue), and soon after more changes quickly took place: color covers, more pages of advertising, a built-up of Vogue patterns, more society pages, and more fashion.
Vogue became the “technical adviser – the consulting specialist – to the woman of fashion in the matter of her clothes and of her personal adornment”. (Seebohm, Caroline, The man who was Vogue. The life and times of Condé Nast. New York: The Viking Press, 1982, p. 76).
It was a weekly with Arthur B. Turnure named as publisher, Harry McVickar as art director, and Mrs Josephine Redding as editor. The publisher declared that:
“The definitive object is the establishment of a dignified authentic journal of society, fashion and the ceremonial side of life, that is to be for the present, mainly pictorial”. (Vogue, December 17th, 1892)
Behind Vogue there is the story of the high society of New York, the story of the upper classes and their life style; it was a magazine concerned to reflect their ideas, to report their activities, to set an example, the only magazine conceived to set out an elite. Behind Vogue there is the story of the American fashion industry, and above all, there is the story of an ambitious businessman like Condé Nast, who bought the magazine in 1909, after four years of negotiations.
Condé Nast was only 36 when he acquired Vogue.
He had begun his business working for the Collier’s Weekly owned by the father of a close friend. In 1905, he was promoted to business manager. While working there, in 1904 he became vice-president of the Home Pattern Company. Women’s dress patterns had become big business since the invention of the sewing machine in 1846. He had plenty of the ideas and the ambition to go farther…
By the beginning of 1910 the new Nast Vogue had taken shape: he cut the magazine publication schedule from weekly to fortnightly (with the February 15, 1910 issue), and soon after more changes quickly took place: color covers, more pages of advertising, a built-up of Vogue patterns, more society pages, and more fashion.
Vogue became the “technical adviser – the consulting specialist – to the woman of fashion in the matter of her clothes and of her personal adornment”. (Seebohm, Caroline, The man who was Vogue. The life and times of Condé Nast. New York: The Viking Press, 1982, p. 76).
Bibliography
Woolman Chase, Edna and Ilka Chase. Always in Vogue. Garden City: Doubleday & Company, 1954
Seebohm, Caroline. The man who was Vogue. The life and times of Condé Nast. New York: The Viking Press, 1982
Vogue. New York: The Fashion Company, 1892-
The Vogue Archive. Ann Arbor: Proquest. (accessed September 21, 2022).
Seebohm, Caroline. The man who was Vogue. The life and times of Condé Nast. New York: The Viking Press, 1982
Vogue. New York: The Fashion Company, 1892-
The Vogue Archive. Ann Arbor: Proquest. (accessed September 21, 2022).
[Marcella Mazzetti]