More than any other fashion magazine, Vogue has come to represent the gold standard of publications targeting the stylish, culturally sophisticated woman. From its inception in the late nineteenth century to the present, the magazine has served as a photographic and literary record of its readers lives— the liberated elite of the 1920s, the idealized housewives of the 1950s, the working everywoman of the 1970s, and today’s multiracial, indefinable woman. Rizzoli’s In Vogue represents over 100 years worth of the magazine's most memorable images, and analyzes its influence on over a century of fashion.
The first examines Vogue 's beginnings as a society chronicle, its early illustrated covers, and the birth of fashion photography. Here one finds wonderful, rarely published pictures by the likes of Charles Gibson and St.John. Each hand-rendered illustration speaks volumes about the women it depicts, both adorned and imprisoned by their jewels and corsets. How limited these womens' lives must have been within the constraints of class and marriage. With no expectation of freedom, they indulged in one of the few pastimes afforded them—fashion.
Over the years, the Vogue woman has transformed herself from rosy-cheeked aristocrat to slender flapper, from hourglass sexpot to boyish gamine, from glamazon to waif. Today she is no longer the socialite or ubermodel, she could be any woman. The authors propose that a fashion photograph is not simply a picture of a dress—it is a picture of a woman, of how she looks and is looked at. Each picture does indeed speak to the models perception of herself, of how she is and how she should be- her life within the cultural limitations of her time. By exploring this concept In Vogue transcends from mere visual fluff into a quiet, important portrait of the American woman. Gracefully written and beautifully edited, In Vogue is sure to be a happy addition to any well heeled coffee table.
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