Vogue's New World: American Fashionability and the Politics of Style

Author: David Alison Matthews  

Publisher: Bloomsbury Journals (formerly Berg Journals)

ISSN: 1751-7419

Source: Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body & Culture, Vol.10, Iss.1-2, 2006-03, pp. : 13-38

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Abstract

The first Vogue was an inherently American phenomenon. It began in New York in 1892 as social gazette for a Eurocentric elite and became a more professional and patriotic publication under the responsibility of Condé Nast who purchased it in 1909. This article links Vogue with the geographical and social conditions of its production. At a time of mass immigration and the rise of new models of womanhood during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Vogue adopted a conservative stance. However, as the market audience changed over the first few decades, Vogue began to renounce snobbery and began to embrace authentic American style in dress. This included acceptance of mass-produced and branded goods. David concludes that from an amateur, Eurocentric social gazette that focused on fantasies of the colonial past, Vogue became a professional, self-confident mass-circulation magazine that was resolutely focused on a modern, streamlined American future.