Postcards from Vogue

Wed, 14 Nov 2012 | By Emily Gosling

Celebrating 120 years of seemingly effortless sophistication and unparalleled sartorial finesse, American Vogue is marking its birthday with a gorgeous postcard collection, each featuring a different cover from the years since its birth in 1892.

While today’s covers look to daring photographs of the likes of glittering stars such as Lady Gaga or Halle Berry, early covers were stunning works based on stylish typography and illustration.

Early Vogue cover illustrators and artists included George Wolfe Plank, Olive Tilton, Pierre Brissaud and Eduardo Garcia Benito.

With the introduction of colour photography, these beautifully pattern-led images made way for forward-thinking photography styles, including the arresting images by Irving Penn and the Surrealist-style works of Horst P Horst.

It was only really in the 1950s that celebrities began to see their visages splashed across the covers, with icons such as Elizabeth Taylor and Christy Turlington snapped by photographers such as Richard Avedon.

Ian Shaw, photography director of American Vogue, says, ‘There are few magazines that are as well known as Vogue for its covers. From the first cover illustration in 1892 to the photographs of supermodels and movie stars done in more recent times, each Vogue cover offers us a glimpse into another world.’

Postcards from Vogue: One Hundred Iconic Covers is published on 29 November priced £14.99

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