Vogue a Timeless Asset

VOGUE in France just celebrated its 95^th anniversary with a happening style party in Paris  that not only convoked the world’s most beautiful people but gave readers and followers a glimpse into why it keeps  attracting readership and following in these tumultuous days for the publishing industry.

As the party clearly portrayed, VOGUE is less of a magazine and more of aa billboard that registers what happens in the lives of beautiful people and what forces will intervene in the formation of the next rend of upper class aspirations. As a good and striking billboard it also carries notes and belongings from passersby.

Born in New York in 1892 as a weekly newspaper, VOGUE was meant to be the mile marker of taste, style and manners. Yes!!! manners were important in those days, as they marked the borders of economic might and power. With the passage of time VOGUE turned into the taste cursor  and the launching board for beauty and exquisiteness incarnated in a series of supermodels that included Jean Shrimpton , Twiggy; Penelope Tree; Marisa Berenson and Lauren Hutton.

All of them lead a different approach to style, fashion and living that marked the baby boomer generation.  But as women deserted tea parlors to enter board rooms and the world became smaller and smaller VOGUE had to become more value creating and business trend setting than ceremonial and aesthetic. Along came the prodigious photographers who could transcend the rigidity of printed sheets to gracefully land on celluloid ribbons and magnetic signals.

With them VOGUE left the realms of a magazine to become a printed show that captures a profound yet incomplete snapshot of the life of the world’s upper crust. Hong Kong; Tokyo; Shanghai; Beijing Mumbai and Kuala Lumpur debuted in the revenue spread sheet of the most profitable style publication. And with their contribution to earnings came a fresh new wave of personalities and trend setters that brought to the West new and appealing approaches to style and modern living.

And since no happening can be trapped in a printing press, Vogue’s Editor , Ms Anna Wintour created the event  “Fashion Night” which was launched in 2009. 27 US cities and 15 countries participated in what critics believe was the revival of fashion after the financial collapse of 2007-2008.

Fashion Nights allow VOGUE to take the worldwide pulse of the affluent societies’ aspirations as well as attract talent for its projects and publications. Some doubt it will transcend the  leadership take over by Millennials, I particularly think it will because it already is part of their visual sustenance system and that is an asset that is seldom chewed by time.

(Featured Image: Rihanna  in Vogue Paris’s 95th Anniversary Party/vogue.com-Getty Images)