British Vogue: The Biography of an Icon (Hardback)

Julie Summers (author)

£30.00

Hardback 400 Pages
Published: 03/10/2024

Coming soon

Awaiting publication

Quantity

This item has been added to your basket

View basket Checkout

View other formats and editions

Synopsis

The definitive account of a fashion institution, this stunningly presented volume traces the full story of British Vogue from the trauma of two world wars through the Swinging Sixties and onto today's supermodel stars.

More than just a fashion magazine, more than a brand, Vogue is an institution, a major business and a character in its own right. It is also part of an intensely private empire that for almost all of its existence has remained a self-sufficient, sealed microcosm. For the first time, the full, glamorous and tempestuous history of British Vogue will be told, from its very beginnings in 1916 right up to the present day.

From the trauma of two world wars, when Vogue faced paper rationing and its staff had to shelter in the basement of its bombed-out offices, to the relief of the post-war period, when 'Paris was putting two inches on the brim of its hats in anticipation of the peace to come', the swinging Sixties when models such as Jean Shrimpton dominated the covers, to power dressing in the eighties and the rise of the supermodels in the 1990s right up to the unique challenges faced during the Coronavirus pandemic and the positive changes made by the most recent editor Edward Enninful, this is the story of a magazine and the individuals who created it, told against the backdrop of an extraordinary century of change, upheaval and beauty.

Beautifully illustrated with images from the Vogue archive, and including exclusive interviews with Vogue-insiders such as stylist Grace Coddington, Editor Alexandra Shulman and Fashion Editor Lucinda Chambers this is the perfect gift for Vogue fans and anyone who enjoys social history with a little sparkle.

Publisher: Orion Publishing Co
ISBN: 9781474626200
Number of pages: 400
Weight: 760 g
Dimensions: 236 x 162 x 36 mm

MEDIA REVIEWS

This is a fascinating book. Impressively researched, full of new insights, and a joy to read, it puts into proper perspective Vogue's unrivalled role, not merely as a fashion magazine, but as a record of British cultural, social and artistic life in the changing world of the 20th and early 2lst centuries. I loved it. - Josephine Ross, author of The Crown in Vogue

This excellent book chronicles the entire history of British Vogue accurately and enthrallingly. It is important, because it records the ever-changing creative climate and cast of characters of a publishing phenomenon, and preserves it all lest it ever be swept away - SIr Nicholas Coleridge

A gem. Julie's book is a delicious reveal on how gently revolutionary a glossy magazine has been, charting everything from the open acceptance that wildly creative editor Dorothy Todd was living with VOGUE's fashion editor, Madge Garland, to the platonic bond between war correspondent Lee Miller and the editor she could not have survived WW2 without, Audrey Withers. It takes us right up to the modern age and the brilliance of Edward Enninful's editorship when the world was locked down for COVID-19. Every page has some rich and juicy fact I didn't know before.... - Marion Hume, former editor of Vogue Australia, co-writer of the screenplay for LEE starring Kate Winslet as Lee Miller and Andrea Riseborough as Audrey Withers

Julie Summers has written the first book to give British Vogue its rightful place at the centre of an impeccably researched biography...always changing and always fascinating - Alexandra Shulman, former editor of British Vogue