Looking through old Vogue covers at the Vogue Archive

You don’t have to pay?!?!

I guess this is the inspiration for Anne’s horrible Cowardly Lion hair hat as the Gillian Girl in “Valley of the Dolls” (?)

Great site. Thanks OP.

Like butter....

Who woulda thunk that something from the 1970s or 1980s is... dated.

I love the covers from the 1950s. On this one the model is on her way home from the store, anxious to try out her brand new supersized dildo!

They've come a long way from the 1890s.

Great site, thanks Op!

^ The illustrated covers are really good. The early covers are all illustrated, they didn't use photographs until the 30s

Margaret Sullavan’s daughter Brooke in 1959, who wrote the memoir HAYWIRE.

Can you look inside the magazines?

R2, that collar reappeared on Linda Evangelista in The Too Funky video.

Vairst architekt on cover Vogue.

Best First Lady.

Ever.

Which decade would you say the glamour died off, going by Vogue covers?

It cracks me up that Sienna Miller and Carey Mulligan managed to have a million Vogue covers. And Anna Wintour couldnt find any other black women so she puts Lupita Nyongo, Michelle Obama, Beyonce and Rihanna on every friggin year in the 2010s. But she did put Nicole Kidman and Jennifer Aniston every year in the aughts as well, so whatever I guess.

Cher!

Jane (1960)

Cher looks kind of fucked up in R14. They shouldn’t have tried to make her look so conventional.

I'm surprised at the extreme repetition of the same models - many of these had 3 covers in a year. Going through the 80's you see when models started to 'pop' - I'm amazed Estelle had so many covers.

83-85 - let's just rotate Isabella Rossalini, Brooke Shields, Alexa Singer, and Renee Simonsen over and over. Why did Alexa Singer have FIVE covers in 1985? Makes no sense.

I have a problem with this

Rockin’ the Little Edie look in 1964

R17 I was just coming here to say that, those years it's like they had Renee Simonsen, Isabella Rosellini, Kim Alexis, Brooke Shields and Alexa Singer on rotation. I didn't even remember Alexa Singer. The others I remember but not Singer. Shari Belefonte managed a few covers during their reign too.

In the early 70s Karen Graham and Lauren Hutton were on, like, half the covers (they looked great though)

[quote] Which decade would you say the glamour died off, going by Vogue covers?

1950s.

Cher had a bunch of covers in the 70s

Hillary bringing the glam

I wonder why Trump couldn't buy Ivanka or Marla Maples the cover of Vogue, but he was able to get Ivana and Melania on the cover.

Both were gorgeous R21.

Personally, I think that Harper's Bazaar made better use of Avedon as a photographer.

Elizabeth Taylor photographed by Antony Armstrong-Jones

The Snow Don

I was surprised Jacqueline Bisset had multiple covers in the mid 70s. I know THE DEEP was popular, but it’s not like she was in other blockbusters.

Sometimes you got a cover or two because there was someone high up at Condé Nast who liked you.

You’d have to go back and untangle a lot of personal relationships....

Winona had a bunch of covers in the 90s

[quote] Winona had a bunch of covers in the 90s

She stole the issue whenever she was on the cover.

^^ She looks quite manly.

Never got her appeal.

^^ re: Di

Princess Grace

R5, I love those, too, but for me, the 40s covers are high art. This was a decade when Horst P. Horst, Blumenthal, Irving Penn would shoot for the magazine. Lisa Fonssagrives was a regular cover girl and I was obsessed with her for a while. She later married Irving Penn, but one of the most gorgeous models Vogue ever used.

Madonna photographed by Patrick Demarchelier

Madonna photographed by Patrick Demarchelier

So young.

1969 has one white blue eyed girl five or six times.

former DL super-fave.

Who was this? She keeps appearing.

You can tell that in the 70s and 80s they were saying "We better make sure we have one black model each year!"

[quote]R42 Who was this? She keeps appearing.

She looks kind of like a Jewish secretary named Rhonda.

(Maybe she was?)

[quote]Which decade would you say the glamour died off, going by Vogue covers?

Vogue reflected the fads of each time. I think the decline started in the late 60s and glamour was fully dead by the 70s. The reason: the counterculture trend that rejected the establishment. Goodbye to white gloves with elegant clothes, hair salon appointments, and regular bathing. Hello, unwashed and unkempt hippies on psychedelics!

Can you confirm this, eldergays?

R45 I think women entering the workforce in larger numbers had a bigger impact on Vogue than the counter-culture movement, but that's just me. It was also partially due to the recession.

May 1978 - great looking gurl. DL's favorite year and era.

Sept '69 - who was this?

She got about five covers in 1969. WHY?

Barbara Amiel was a model in the 50s?

r47 is Patti Hansen, but what have they done to her eyes? Or maybe it's drugs. Looks good, though.

It's interesting how in the mid nineties they transitioned from using actual models to celebrities to sell the magazine.

R25 I'm a year younger than Ivanka and remember her "modeling" career well because it happened during the peak years that I read magazines. All her gigs were either nepotism based or lower tier stuff, the latter of which she also only booked thanks to nepotism. I remember she did a fashion spread in Cosmo with a theme about being rich, and she got a Seventeen cover which tied into a story about celeb moms and daughters. The biggest commercial job she got was a spokesperson for Sassoon jeans, which you could buy at K-Mart.

Snap out of it, R52!

Rene Russo had a nice cover run in the mid 70s.

Russo was photographer Francesco Scavullo’s favorite model. He said as much in one of his books.

the Shrimp

Susie

Cyb

"1969 has one white blue eyed girl five or six times."

That's Susanne Schöneborn

Brooke Shields had a ton of covers in the early to mid 80s

Shit Shari Belafonte and Isabella owned 84/85

Esme Marshall had a really great look

Candice Bergen

Miss Hornby...

R56, I worked for Vidal Sassoon in SF in the 1980’s and one of our clients was a former model who Scavullo named the most beautiful woman he had ever worked with or the most beautiful woman in the US or the world. I can’t remember which. She was married to a stockbroker who looked like a former model himself. She had two young children and was retired. Who was she?

[quote]r60 That's Susanne Schöneborn

Tenacious German bitch who [italic]will not die!

Verushka for the Tinfoil Brigade!

[quote]R66 i worked for Vidal Sassoon in SF in the 1980’s and one of our clients was a former model who Scavullo named the most beautiful woman he had ever worked with or the most beautiful woman in the US or the world. I can’t remember which. She was married to a stockbroker who looked like a former model himself. She had two young children and was retired. Who was she?

Hmmm... well, he kind of flattered everyone in a flowery way. And he had even shot Tuesday Weld when she was a child model in the 1940s, so he’d kind of worked with everyone.

I think his favorite models were Renee Russo, Gia Carangi and Brooke Shields - but your client doesn’t sound like any of them.

Mysterious!

Mariel Hemingway (1982)

Anne St. Marie had a ton of covers in the 1950s.

(Faye Dunaway essentially played her in “Puzzle of a Downfall Child” in 1970.)

[quote]synopsis: [italic]Lou Andreas Sand, a once famous model, recalls her past as she tries to make success in the modeling world of New York, her stressful workdays, her affair with Mark, an advertising executive, her friendship with photographer Aaron, and her downward spiral into ruin.[/italic]

[quote]The film’s story is inspired by the story of real life model Anne St. Marie. Director and former fashion photographer Jerry Schatzberg taped a series of interviews with her and these became the basis for the film.

Is this 1962 cover Candice Bergen... or some other even featured blonde?

Alexa Singer's November 1984 cover is terrible. There wasn't a better take?

R74, wiki says it's Anne de Zogheb. She does look like Candice Bergen in that shot, though

Nastassja Kinski, 1980

(then credited as Nastassia Kinski)

I wonder if this 1934 person is A MAN

Suzy

In my birth year, 1966, the hair/wigs and earrings were insane. There was an enormous shift from the more WASPy fashion sense of 1960 to the mod look six years later. The change began to be more noticeable around 1964 with 1966 and 1967 being most pronounced.

Uma Thurman’s mom, Nena von Schlebrügge.

This is lovely and not terribly off topic...

2001 was when they started in with celebs, 2002 it was mainly celebs, then 2003 - all celebs. And has been ever since - maybe 1 cover a year uses an actual model now.

I hate it. Celebs are on enough covers of other magazines already. I want to see beauty, fresh faces, etc.

Not the same cover that you'd see on People or OK! magazine. '

That's when culture started to decline - there hasn't really been much originality since.

I think it’s fascinating that some models were technically too short to meet standard agency requirements, but were still signed up because they were so beautiful.

I believe the smallest was Mary Jane Russell... but I’ve read that Gia Carangi, Lauren Hutton and Jean Patchett were all on the shorter side, too.

In the end it didn’t matter.

Jean Patchett was about average for a model but Dorian Leigh was around 5'5"

^^ I read a lot about vintage models when I was a teen (I liked classic movies, too) so my memory might be fuzzy. But I thought I read some interview once with Eileen Ford where she said Patchett was short-ish.

Maybe I’m mixing it up with her mole, tho, which was unconventional.

does anyone know if they have a list of photographers who had photos in Vogue?

Dorian Leigh

(I think she ended up drinking too much)

r87, wiki has a page listing all the models on the cover of Vogue and the photographers who shot all the covers

r89 I am trying to locate some of the photos my father did for Vogue but I don't think he ever did a cover but I will check, thanks.

WEHT Dorothy McGowan? She pretty much vanished

no wonder my father never got a cover. It was all the same photographers for years for the covers.

r92, if you don't mind me asking, who was your dad?

He used his first name only and it was Aldin. He also had some photos in the Italian Vogue.

For the US Vogue he had them in the magazines in the 50's/60's. In the Italian Vogue he had them in in the 70's. I think he switched over to advertising photography by the 80's but not sure as he lived in Paris by that time.

I love 1966

r94, that's really cool!

There is a surprisingly attractive cover of a younger Ivana Trump that looks a lot like Ivanka. Considering how horribly Ivana has aged, it doesn’t bode well for Grifter Barbie...

here is one of my father's photos but don't know if it was ever published. I have a number of them.

I think that r97 model is Linda Morand. She started a site called MiniMadMod that started archiving a lot of modeling history.

From the beginning to the mid-80s, Isabella Rossellini appears to have been on about half of the covers. (I guess she was working as a model then.)

In the mid-80s, enter Cindy Crawford, who seems to have taken over after Isabella.

In the early 90's, it's Cindy and Claudia on every other cover, with a bit of Linda and Naomi, and later Kate Moss.

Then at the turn of the millennium it's that dreadful Gisele and then over to all those god damn movie stars (with some athletes, reality stars, and politicians strewn in).

Whatever happened to the actual models?

Towards the mid 90s you start to see a lot of actresses (or singers, politicians, and other non-model celebrities) on fashion covers instead of models. Not just Vogue, but most of the fashion mags.

I think it's probably because they assume people would be more likely to buy a magazine because of a star ("Oooh, Jennifer Aniston! I love her) than because of a cute photo of a model whose name they probably don't know

One of my favorite 90s models was Kristy Hume, I forgot about her!

R68: That doesn't look like Veruschka (she has a thinner nose and a bigger mouth).

OP's link shows all the covers for American Vogue. Here's Cindy on the November 1991 issue of Vogue España. According to the fashion industry, one of her strengths as a model was her "international" look. In photos, Cindy could appear to be Spanish or Latina or Middle Eastern or Italian or some mixed ethnicity. "White trash is what I am," she once said jokingly in an interview.

So many of Cindy Crawford’s pics look super butch...

[quote]Cindy could appear to be Spanish or Latina or Middle Eastern or Italian or some mixed ethnicity.

The same for Isabella Rossellini. Wildly popular before Cindy Crawford.

And both Cindy and Isabella had big contracts with beauty advertisers.

I worked with Isabella once, right before Blue Heaven came out, and she couldn’t have been any nicer. Very sweet and human. Have been a big fan since.

I mourn...

R42, That's Brigitte Bauer.

First cover after Anna Wintour became editor. Her mandate was natural light and always shot on location, no more of those cropped face covers with hard studio lighting.

Supposedly, the printers throught this picture was a mistake and couldn’t possibly be the cover. So they called her office to double check beforehand.

Brigitte Bauer

Brigitte does VOGUE New Zealand...

Brigitte sporting the newest "look" in goiter fashion!

That's a beautiful cover, r111. It was smart of Anna to make a tonal shift right out of the gate. You can tell immediately that it was no longer Grace Mirabella's Vogue.

I enjoyed Joan Juliet Buck's memoir about her stint as editor of French Vogue.

I adore all the covers where they show the fashions . When did they move to mostly faces ? What a fun link Op ,thank you !

Shari Belafonte, at 5'5", was too short to be a fashion model. But that gorgeously sculpted face, expressive eyes, and dazzling smile, made her the perfect print model.

r118 too bad we can't see it. It's forbidden

Demi Moore October 1995, yikes!

Call me crazy, but I don't hate the Demi cover. I like the retro winged eyeliner and updo. This was when mod came back in fashion circa 1995.

R119, This one.

R83 here - it really annoys me (still) how they switched almost overnight to all celebs. Clearly there were some metrics about the magazines selling better - which is probably true.

But I think it may have also been a reaction to the Supermodel dominance of the 90's. Not that any of them made any money from the covers - I think they get paid like $250.

Of course, they seemed to re-use the same models over and over so maybe having celebrities made it a lot easier. God knows they were gatekeeping some of those covers, only using a handful of models.

Wintour needs to go - she doesn't own that magazine. Her tenure is past due. She's been editor in chief since she was 39 fucking years old, she's 70 now. Do you think they would ever put a Millennial in charge now?

Another Boomer who has monopolized things and pulled up the ladder behind her.

All fashion aside, what I found interesting is that in the '20s Vogue would change its logo from issue to issue to fit the cover.

Nice styling, but bad branding.

The Shrimp ‘68

R125 Get that gal a hairbrush -- STAT!

R59: Cybill looks so plain there.

R83/R123: Yes, the fashion industry replacing 90s models with celebs on magazine covers was a deliberate backlash. Designers were tired of models as famous as movie stars, who were getting more media attention than the clothes. They were tired of paying the high salaries and dealing with the supermodels' real negotiating power. What supermodels earned paled in comparison to the profits made by the employers using their images.

Designers intentionally ended the ubiquitous marketing image of a sexy, confident woman and replaced her with the passive waif (looking at you, Kate Moss). That was followed by the stupid heroin chic trend. Next, the fashion industry focused on celebs as the last of the supermodels faded from the scene. They won't let the pendulum swing back. Wintour jumped the shark when she put Kim Kardashian on the cover. It's all been downhill.

Love this! Thank you, OP.