Friday, May 6, 2011

American vs. Italian VOGUE?


American Vogue :
 

The current editor-in-chief of American Vogue is Anna Wintour, noted for her trademark bob and her practice of wearing sunglasses indoors. Since taking over in 1988, Wintour has worked to protect the magazine's high status and reputation among fashion publications. In order to do so, she has made the magazine focus on new and more accessible ideas of "fashion" for a wider audience. This allowed Wintour to keep a high circulation while discovering new trends that a broader audience could conceivably afford. For example, the inaugural cover of the magazine under Wintour's editorship featured a three-quarter-length photograph of Israeli super model Michaela Bercu wearing a bejeweled Christian Lacroix jacket and a pair of jeans, departing from her predecessors' tendency to portray a woman's face alone, which, according to the Times', gave "greater importance to both her clothing and her body. This image also promoted a new form of chic by combining jeans with haute couture. Wintour's debut cover brokered a class-mass rapprochement that informs modern fashion to this day." Wintour's Vogue also welcomes new and young talent.
Wintour's presence at fashion shows is often taken by fashion insiders as an indicator of the designer's profile within the industry. In 2003, she joined the Council of Fashion Designers of America in creating a fund that provides money and guidance to at least two emerging designers each year. This has built loyalty among the emerging new star designers, and helped preserve the magazine's dominant position of influence through what Time called her own "considerable influence over American fashion. Runway shows don't start until she arrives. Designers succeed because she anoints them. Trends are created or crippled on her command."
The contrast of Wintour's vision with that of her predecessor has been noted as striking by observers, both critics and defenders. Amanda Fortini, fashion and style contributor to Slate argues that her policy has been beneficial for Vogue:
When Wintour was appointed head of Vogue, Grace Mirabella had been editor in chief for 17 years, and the magazine had grown complacent, coasting along in what one journalist derisively called "its beige years." Beige was the color Mirabella had used to paint over the red walls in Diana Vreeland's office, and the metaphor was apt: The magazine had become boring. Among Condé Nast executives, there was worry that the grand dame of fashion publications was losing ground to upstart Elle, which in just three years had reached a paid circulation of 851,000 to Vogue 's stagnant 1.2 million. And so Condé Nast publisher Si Newhouse brought in the 38-year-old Wintour—who, through editor in chief positions at British Vogue and House & Garden, had become known not only for her cutting-edge visual sense but also for her ability to radically revamp a magazine—to shake things up. Vogue also continued making household names out of models, a practice that continued with Suzy Parker, Twiggy, Jean Shrimpton, Lauren Hutton, Veruschka, Marisa Berenson, Penelope Tree, and others.
There's also a magazine called Teen Vogue that features the IN things in fashion for the youngsters. 







Italian Vogue :

Franca Sozzani - As editor-in-chief of Vogue Italia, Sozzani wields a different power to her American counterpart, Anna Wintour. Her magazine has traditionally been the most arty and uncompromisingly 'fashion' of the Vogues. It is not so much about circulation as reflecting the zeitgeist. It doesn't matter that the editorial is in Italian, the magazine is an international style bible. She edited the Italian magazine Lei in 1979, and then went on to start Per Lui, working with Bruce Weber, Steven Meisel, Peter Lindbergh and Paolo Roversi.
Its imagery is frequently shocking and provocative; according to the art director of British Vogue, its photographs "go beyond straight fashion to be about art and ideas". It has been called the top fashion magazine in the world. Vogue Italia and the Italian fashion industry have historically had a symbiotic relationship, with Vogue Italia contributing to Milan's domination of the fashion world. Recent influential editorials have included Steven Meisel's September 2006 "State of Emergency", a visual play on the War on Terror, and Meisel's July 2007 "Rehab", addressing recent celebrity visits to rehab clinics. and the August 2010 Issue, featuring KristenMcMenamy, shooting on the site of the BP Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
The July 2008 issue featured only black models, photographed by Steven Meisel, and the articles pertained to black women in the arts and entertainment. The magazine claimed to showcase black models in response to anger caused by the disinclination of fashion magazines to display black models on their covers. Fashion industry insiders claim black models are featured less often because they are unable to sell. This statement, along with the formation of a protest group in New York that challenges racism in the industry, convinced Italian Vogue's editor, Franca Sozzani to create this issue.
The issue included established supermodels like Vivien Tan, Yasmin Warsame, Alek Wek, Veronica Webb, Noemie Lenoir, Iman, Liya Kebede, Tyra Banks and Naomi Campbell, as well as contemporary models, including Jourdan Dunn, Chanel Iman, Arlenis Sosa, and Sessilee Lopez. This specific issue also brought in Toccara Jones, the first black plus-sized model to be in the pages of the high fashion magazine. Instead of the issue not selling, it became the highest selling issues of Italian Vogue ever, and had run out of print twice, which marked the first time in Condé Nast history that the magazine reprinted an issue to satisfy demand. The reprinted copies had the tag lines: "Most Wanted Issue Ever" and "First Reprint" banded across the front.However, even though the advertising pages went up 30 percent, there was a "glaring lack of black models" in them. Meisel said: "I've asked my advertising clients so many times, 'Can we use a black girl?' They say no. Advertisers say black models don't sell."
There's also a Beauty In Vogue magazine. 


Now you decide ?

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