Vogue 100: A Century of Style

Vogue 100: A Century of Style

Robin Muir is a photographer and contributing editor to British Vogue who has curated the recent photographic exhibition Vogue 100: A Century of Style, shown at the National Portrait Gallery in London as part of the centenary celebrations for the magazine.

Images from some of the century's most talented photographers are featured, including Cecil Beaton, Lee Miller, Irving Penn, Horst, Edward Steichen, Snowdon, Mario Testino, and Tim Walker (my favourite). Tim Walker's 2009 image of Alexander McQueen greets the visitor on arrival at the exhibition. The book accompanying the exhibition takes us on a journey through the decades that make up Vogue's centenary, celebrating the faces, the fashion, and the cultural landscape of the era. A tour of the exhibition with Robin Muir as the guide can be viewed on the following youtube clip from Vogue:

http://www.vogue.co.uk/voguevideo/genres/fashion/2015/12/vogue-100-a-century-of-style

Vogue was originally a weekly gazette which began publication in New York in 1892. It was in decline when advertising manager Condé Montrose Nast acquired it in 1909. Issues of American Vogue were imported into Britain but became unavailable midway during the Great War, when travel across the Atlantic became too dangerous due to patrolling German submarines. The demand for the magazine saw the creation of British Vogue and the publication of the first issue was on 15 September 1916. Vogue was one of the first magazines to use colour photography, printing its first full-colour photographic cover by Edward Steichen in July 1932.

Dunedin Public Libraries has one of the best collections of Vogue magazines in New Zealand, and these are often used by staff and students of the Otago Polytechnic's Fashion Design School. Our earliest issue of British Vogue is 1934 and there is a continuous run from 1948. American Vogue begins in 1939, and Vogue Australia and Vogue Paris both begin in 1978. We also own a run of Vogue Hommes from 1977-1996,  and eight rare issues of Vogue New Zealand. Vogue New Zealand began production in England by British Vogue in 1957, and by 1960 it was being produced in Australia. It featured the work of local designers and photographers, but ceased publication in 1968 as the country was too small to sustain it. The library's most recent acquisition is Vogue Italia, and we also have limited runs of Vogue India, Vogue Latin America and L'Uomo Vogue available as eMagazines through Zinio.

Our vintage Vogue magazines are a feature of Dunedin Public Libraries’ fashion tours which are held every year as part of the iD Fashion Week programme. These tours highlight our fashion resources from our heritage and lending collections. Tour participants are taken to the Heritage library to view a display of New Zealand heritage materials including our eight issues of New Zealand Vogue, as well as a selection of archived British, American, Paris, Hommes and Australian Vogue issues. They are also taken to the first floor to view a display of fashion-themed books, which includes fashion design and photography, couture and designers, the history of costume, illustration, pattern construction, street style, vintage fashion, and style icons and models. One of the tour participants this year was a tutor from the Queensland University of Technology. He was accompanying two of his students who were participating in Fashion Week. The collection from one student, Alice Waterhouse, had been selected to open the iD Fashion Show and his other student, Jordan Anderson, won the Emerging Designer Award for his collection 'Global Citizen.' He was impressed with Dunedin and our tour!


Recommended books about fashion photographers for Vogue:

Beaton in Vogue by Josephine Ross

Lee Miller: A Woman’s War. Lee Miller

Horst: Photographer of Style. Susanna Brown

Edward Steichen: In High Fashion: the Condé Nast Years 1923-1937. William A Ewing and Todd Brandow

Coming Into Fashion: A Century of Photography at Condé Nast. Nathalie Herschdorfer