Book Review: Vogue’s Decades of Fashion

In Vogue; The Illustrated History of the World’s Most Famous Fashion Magazine by Norberto Angeletti and Alberto Oliva is a beautiful coffee-table book featuring Vogue’s finest photographs. Not only does this book detail the history of Vogue itself with commentaries from its most influential, such as Anna Wintour; it also details the progression of fashion photography and how cutting-edge Vogue is. Long before America’s Next Top Model’s famous “underwater shots,” Toni Frissell shot Joan Dixon underwater in 1939 through the glass at an oceanarium in Marineland (82).

The book also chronicles the changes of fashion and fashionable body shapes. For instance, a photograph of a woman on the street wearing a long Dior dress with cinched waist, hat, gloves and heels for the 1948 article on the Paris spring collections (141) drastically compares to the 1969 photo of Marisa Berenson wearing a Saint Laurent mini-dress on the street (179).

Of course, not everything in Vogue is simply about fashion; Vogue also features informative articles and celeb interviews. Vogue has always been one to schmooze with the stars. Look for pictures of Keira Knightley (300), Truman Capote (149), Brigitte Bardot (162), Marilyn Monroe (175), Nicole Kidman (248), Christina Ricci (337), and Drew Barrymore (385), among others, in the book. Vogue also covers important societal topics, such as obesity. In 2004, Irving Penn photographed a grossly obese woman for an article about America’s obesity epidemic (297).

The book contains some of the most stunning and creative photographs I have ever seen, like -my personal favourite- Annie Leibovitz’s 2003 style essay called “Alice in Wonderland.” The piece stars Natalia Vodianova as Alice, Marc Jacobs as the Caterpillar, Jean Paul Gaultier as the Cheshire Cat, Viktor & Rolf as Tweedledee and Tweedledum, John Galliano as the Queen of Hearts, Karl Lagerfeld, Rupert Everett and Donnatella Versace as the Gryphon (268-271). It truly is a remarkable piece by the legendary photographer.

In Vogue; The Illustrated History of the World’s Most Famous Fashion Magazine is a telling piece about our society as a whole. Not only does the book chronicle the history of fashion as told through the images in Vogue magazine; it tells the changes of body image, current events, and the entertainment industry. Anyone interested in photography, fashion or popular culture is sure to love this masterpiece collection of Vogue’s finest work.