ysobfoll fellow marius

[Jermale Kunstler]

A few months ago during the middle of quarantine, I actually wrote about the Vogue Portugal cover and the history behind the magazine. If you would like to read that blog post, it will be linked here! It got me noticed by Vogue Portugal itself and I was able to ask deeper questions to the Editor who was able to allow me to correct some of the info I had previously and add more! It was such a great experience and I am so grateful for that opportunity. Since then, I have reached out beyond just the US magazine and have seen just how creative so many others around the world get to be when it comes to creativity and having fun. Read on for some of the best Vogue Italia covers and comment your favorite one!

The most iconic covers of fashion magazines have always reflected big momentum in fashion and the world: advancements in society and technology, a switch in the editorial style in a transition between two editors in chief, new talents who would later become icons, and so on.

Knowing the most iconic Vogue covers is important for anyone interested in fashion, especially if you dream of breaking into the industry. We selected 24 which according to us are the best Vogue covers of all time. Take a look at our selection and enjoy the ride through the visual history of Vogue.

In 1932, American photographer Edward Steichen shot the first color photograph ever printed in Vogue. It was one of a kind because it marked the arrival of fashion photography in the glossy publication. Before, the covers featured illustrations, most of which were gray-scale.

Over the years, Vogue began stepping out of the traditional ways to bring fashion to the public. They want to make it more diverse and inclusive. The December 2020 issue marked a historic moment in the history of Vogue. Harry Styles became the first man to appear solo on the cover of the magazine.

Anna Wintour made a strong entry in the Vogue magazine. For her first November 1988 issue as editor-in-chief of American Vogue, Anna Wintour chose to place on the cover a 19-year-old Israeli model Michaela Bercu. She weas wearing a $50 pair of faded Guess jeans and a bejeweled jacket by Christian Lacroix worth $10,000. When the print company saw the cover, the staff thought it was the wrong image. They called the magazine to check if it was correct. And their surprise is understandable because it was the first time a Vogue cover model had worn jeans, mixing low and high fashion. This makes it one of the best and most memorable covers of Vogue.

In fashion, the September issues are the most important in the editorial calendar. As we transition from summer to fall, we need a new wardrobe, and so September represents the big shopping time. Thanks to September issues, we learn about the latest trends and releases of fall/winter products and receive recommendations from magazines on what to buy and how to style our looks this season.

For its May 2023 cover, Vogue Italia took a real shot of Bella Hadid and placed it on imaginary backgrounds created by the artificial intelligence program DALL-E. A fantastic work where fashion met technology.

For his final 76th issue as editor-in-chief of British Vogue, published in March 2024, Edward Enninful chose to feature 40 women who inspire him. It was a beautiful wrap, and we love that Enninful gave the stage to not one but many talented women.

ISABEL: Hi. I'm Isabel. I'm 4 years old. Elise is my mom. This week on the show, Washington Post tech culture reporter Nitasha Tiku and Farhad Manjoo, opinion columnist for The New York Times. All right. Let's start the show.(SOUNDBITE OF FLEVANS' "FLICKER")ELISE HU, HOST: Hey, y'all. I'm Elise Hu, in for Sam Sanders. IT'S BEEN A MINUTE. We're coming to you this week from NPR member station KQED in San Francisco. And I'm joined by our guests this week that were introduced by my 4-year-old - Nitasha Tiku, tech culture reporter at The Washington Post. Hey, Nitasha.NITASHA TIKU: Hey. Thanks for having me.HU: It's good to see you in real life.TIKU: I know.HU: We've talked...TIKU: After years.HU: ...A lot before.TIKU: Yeah.HU: Exactly. And Farhad Manjoo, an opinion columnist at a little newspaper you might know called The New York Times. Hey, Farhad.FARHAD MANJOO: Hey. Good to be here.HU: Do y'all know who we're listening to?(SOUNDBITE OF BILLIE EILISH SONG, "BAD GUY")TIKU: Yes. Billie Eilish.HU: There you...TIKU: (Laughter).HU: ...Go. Do you know why she's in the news?MANJOO: No.TIKU: She's going to do the "James Bond" theme song?HU: That's right.MANJOO: Really?HU: The 18-year-old...TIKU: Yeah.HU: ...Has been chosen to create the theme song for "No Time To Die," the next Daniel Craig "James Bond" flick. She calls it a huge honor. What do you think of the choice?MANJOO: I didn't really know this was a huge honor. Like, I didn't...(LAUGHTER)MANJOO: ...Know that Bond theme song was, like, a prize up for grabs. But it, you know - her sort of style does seem to fit with - if I were to pick an artist who would be James Bond-y, she seems kind of James Bond-y.TIKU: Yeah. I think maybe the James Bond franchise is angling for, like, TikToks. Billie Eilish is...HU: Oh (laughter).TIKU: ...Really popular on TikTok. So, you know, maybe by honor, it's also, like, a good financial incentive for everyone.MANJOO: Yeah. Marketing.HU: Daniel Craig has said this is his last "Bond." He's been doing it since "Casino Royale" in 2006, when Billie Eilish was 4 years old.MANJOO: Wow.HU: Wild.(SOUNDBITE OF FLEVANS' "FLICKER")HU: OK. Let's get into the news. Each week, we ask our guests to describe some news from the week in three words. This week, because we're here in San Francisco, y'all have some news and tech intersections, I presume, for your three words. Nitasha, you go first.TIKU: OK. My three words are stuck in neutral, which I think describes the way that, like, kind of intractable social and political topics in Silicon Valley, we often, end, up reverting back to square one. So I think of it as like a regressive tendency. And it really came into focus for me recently when I was working on this profile of this top Google public policy executive named Ross LaJeunesse. And he alleges that he was pushed out of the company last year for demanding that Google make stronger commitments to prioritizing human rights, which is something that he thought was necessary when he learned about Project Dragonfly. I don't know if you guys are - well....MANJOO: The Chinese search engine.TIKU: ...I know Farhad is. Yeah.HU: Yeah.TIKU: Exactly - the censored Android search app which would link your phone numbers to your searches - obviously, a huge concern in China. And Ross had been working for Google for 11 years. But the really interesting thing about him is that he was Google's man in China in 2010. Well, just to back up a little bit...HU: Yeah. Remind us why...TIKU: Yeah.HU: ...Google had to take a stance about its China policy anyway.TIKU: So they first launched a censored search engine in 2006. And, you know, the argument at the time was that Google would be able to make the society more open. They would be candid about what was being censored. And, of course, that's not what happened.HU: China don't play that.TIKU: Yeah. You know, the government was emboldened. They asked for more takedowns. And then Google discovered that there was a really sophisticated cyberattack originating in China to look at the Gmail accounts - to hack the Gmail accounts of dissidents and human rights activists. And that...HU: And that could have been at the behest of the state or the state doing it.TIKU: That is what is implied between the lines. You know, when I went back to 2010 and I'm reading the arguments about like, oh, you know, we didn't know that this was going to, you know, fall out this way, I guess we have a new responsibility, and it felt like a decade later, you know, the same debate is happening. And rather than have a conversation about like, OK, obviously, you know, Google just turned into a trillion-dollar company...HU: Right.TIKU: ...You know, we're a trillion-dollar company. We are financially incentivized to go into countries with weak rule of law. Let us put in measures of accountability, some external oversight, like, look at U.N. standards - commit to those publicly. It's like back to square one of like, well, is censored search results in China a good thing? And I just noticed this tendency.MANJOO: They're just having the same argument.TIKU: Yeah.MANJOO: Yeah. I read Ross's Medium post just sort of like telling why he left Google...TIKU: Yeah.MANJOO: ...And sort of arguing that it had changed. And I thought it was really interesting because, I mean, I think a lot of people have documented this huge change within Google, where it used to be kind of this freewheeling internal culture. And it really kind of became the template for, I think, all tech companies since then. Like, you know, Uber is sort of Google-ish. And Facebook is kind of run in that way. But now, you know, you and others have documented how Google is just sort of changing. They have this big kind of anti-union push in the company. They've fired organizers. They've fired sort of internal activists. It seems like a different kind of company. And also it seems like you can't raise these things - these concerns within Google the way you may have once been able to.HU: It's rather wild to me that we rely - like, as a society, we rely on these giant companies to be benevolent because for so long, it's just like, well, Google hasn't really acted poorly, so they can just continue to run things. And we will trust or give them this inherent trust that they can run our massive systems and have a huge lever on society without complaint. But that sort of raises the issue of whether there should be more responsible parties.TIKU: Yeah, exactly.HU: And where do you come down on that?TIKU: Yeah. Well, I think that, you know, the China question is fascinating because that's actually, I think, where the myth of, like, this conscientious tech worker who's going to step in if anybody crosses the line came into play. And you just can't rely on the personal, you know, morality or politics of any individual executive. You know, that was like - in that case, it was Sergey Brin, Google's co-founder. But as we've seen, you know, that Larry and Sergey are sort of pushed out of Google. And so I think having those - like, they don't want anyone in the room who's going to seriously question them. I think we've seen that across the board with the push for self-regulation from every tech company. But, you know, the time is way past nigh to...HU: So does that mean it's time for external regulation?TIKU: I feel like with external regulation that's, like, step 10, and we don't even have, like, basic transparency right now into the decisions that they're making.MANJOO: Yeah, although I think - you know, we're seeing this push for regulation that's really coming from Washington and activists and other companies. I really wonder if consumers really care at all. I don't think it's been sort of a politically resonant issue. And the companies are doing really well. Like, the market doesn't seem to think that they're going to be in for any kind of regulation at this point, you know? I think that kind of getting to a place where the public and regulators and the companies can, you know, put really effective controls on these companies - I - it seems a long way off to me.HU: You're listening to IT'S BEEN A MINUTE from NPR, the show where we catch up on the week that was. I'm Elise Hu in for Sam Sanders here this week at NPR member station KQED with Nitasha Tiku, tech culture reporter at The Washington Post and Farhad Manjoo, opinion columnist at The New York Times.Farhad, you're up. What are your three words?MANJOO: Unlock your iPhone, question mark. Does that count?HU: Question mark - yeah. No, that's perfect. Say more.MANJOO: There's been this fight between law enforcement and tech companies about encryption, about how law enforcement, how the courts can get access to your data on your devices. And the fight has really been between Apple and the FBI. And it kind of came about again last week when Attorney General Bill Barr criticized Apple for not doing enough, he said, to get them inside the phone of the shooter at the naval base in Pensacola, Fla., last year. And the FBI wants to get inside the phone, and Apple has ways for them to get into sort of cloud data. But the phone itself, all the data on it is encrypted. And you need some kind of Face ID or fingerprint or code to get inside, and law enforcement can't get inside.HU: But neither can Apple, right?MANJOO: Neither can Apple.HU: Apple claims that it can't get inside.MANJOO: Right. So the way Apple has designed these phones is, you know, they say, out of a respect for privacy. If you don't have a legal way to get into the phone, you can't. The data is encrypted, and Apple says it doesn't have a way to get inside. The fight then really becomes, like, whether Apple should build some way for law enforcement to access the data on your phone. This is kind of a reprise of a battle they had in 2016, when the FBI at the time was wanting Apple to open the phone of the terrorist in San Bernardino, Calif.HU: OK.MANJOO: And there was a sort of a big legal fight, and at the last minute, the FBI dropped its fight before there was going to sort of be any kind of real courtroom action. And they went to a third-party cybersecurity company that, you know, got them inside the iPhone. But that route, according to the FBI, is sort of drying up. Like, Apple patches...HU: Is patching it.MANJOO: ...The security flaws in its phones, and so there's sort of less vulnerable to kind of other ways to get into the phone. So, I mean, this is a fight that I think is going to be with us for a while because there's this kind of fundamental question of, should we let law enforcement get in our phones? You know, if they have a legal way...HU: Well, in the name of public safety is law enforcement's or the government's argument, right?MANJOO: Yeah. I mean, but there's a - I think there are a lot of other considerations here. You know, we were talking about other governments. If Apple builds a way for the FBI to get inside your phone, that same way could be used if, you know, the government of Saudi Arabia orders it to get inside someone's phone or China or someone else. You know, Apple has to obey the laws wherever it operates, and so their argument is that it makes everyone less safe if you have some kind of backdoor into the iPhone. And I think it's just going to be a battle that we have, you know, over the next decade or more to figure out, like, what is the line there between, you know, when law enforcement can get inside a phone and, you know, not just phones - kind of all of our digital devices now.HU: What's different about the stakes now in 2020 and with this administration versus the last time you...MANJOO: I mean, it's - in some ways, the fight is the same, but all the context has changed. So, you know, Tim Cook has been really one of the best friends of the Trump administration. In the various different rounds of tariffs imposed on China, Apple got waivers and got exempted from a number of them because, you know, Tim Cook has sort of played the game well. And I think that it's going to be more difficult for kind of Apple to navigate this, especially because Trump is just much more aggressive than the Obama administration was about this question.HU: Nitasha, what have you observed as you've watched this latest round of this privacy versus public safety battle?TIKU: Well, what Farhad was saying about the context changing, I think that's so key, you know? Like, the hypothetical authoritarian regime abusing this back door just is, you know, in the headlines.MANJOO: Yeah.TIKU: Like, you don't really have to stretch your imagination at all.MANJOO: I mean, we at The New York Times have been doing this yearlong project on privacy. And we have, you know, seen in that project, in - kind of in a number of other reporting that there is just so much data that the tech industry collects on people that - and it's so hard to avoid, you know? Even if you don't use Facebook, even if you don't have any - you know, a smart home device, there's so much that these companies can get about you in a very, very intimate way and know, you know, essentially, everything about you more than, like, any close family member knows about you.And this raises the stakes for, you know, the security of personnel around the world, the security of, like, you know, your family, your safety. And it just makes it very - a much more kind of high-stakes battle because, you know, you get inside the data on somebody's phone, you really know everything about them.HU: And there's a real chilling effect to feeling as if you're surveilled or just knowing that you are surveilled, right? I was based in Asia. And so China comes up as an example a lot. A lot of times, reporters would return to their homes, and there would be policemen in their homes just rummaging through drawers, not to take anything - you know, they're not thieves - but just to make you aware that you were being watched. And so there is a chilling effect to that, whether you are a regular person, a journalist who's supposed to be a check on power or the power itself. So in light of all of this, what do you think we should be doing, collectively, to better stand up for our values?MANJOO: I mean, the thing that I would say is, like, my biggest takeaway from kind of thinking about privacy over the last year is that I am much more cautious about adopting technology - or I think people should be more cautious about adopting new technology. I think one of the things that we should all do is just sort of slow down. Like, I'm really worried about cameras everywhere. Like, there's been this huge discussion about this company - this doorbell camera company called Ring...HU: Right.MANJOO: ...Which Amazon owns, which Amazon bought, you know, relatively recently, you know, was a huge success. Every - lots of people are installing these doorbell cameras because it makes sense to - you know, it seems like a convenient technology. Someone rings your doorbell, you know, at home or you want to see who it is. And you can just look at your phone and see who's at your door. But the company is creating this weird, like, neighborhood watch program and allowing law enforcement to look at your camera.TIKU: They, like, subsidized it so that law enforcement could get access to your camera. And people are putting them in their, like, children's room, you know, using them as, like, a baby monitor.MANJOO: And the security has various flaws in it, you know. People have hacked these cameras. And you hack a home security camera, and, suddenly, you know everything about those people. And I think what was interesting is that people just rushed to buy these cameras - like, the company did really well - without considering the implications of, like, are we creating a neighborhood surveillance device that is going to profile everyone who comes on our street? Like, that could easily happen. I mean, it's sort of - there are parts of it that are happening already. And no one really had this discussion.HU: Yeah, consider the implications before you adopt.MANJOO: Yeah.HU: Got it.All right. Time for a break. When we come back, imagine an issue of Vogue magazine without any photos - why the magazine's Italian version went illustration-only for its latest issue after the break. You're listening to IT'S BEEN A MINUTE from NPR. I'm Elise Hu. We'll be right back.(SOUNDBITE OF FLEVANS' "FLICKER")HU: We're back. You're listening to IT'S BEEN A MINUTE from NPR, the show where we catch up on the week that was. I'm Elise Hu in for Sam Sanders here this week at NPR member station KQED with Nitasha Tiku, tech culture reporter at The Washington Post. Hey, Nitasha.TIKU: Hey.HU: And Farhad Manjoo, columnist at The New York Times. What is up?MANJOO: Hey.HU: So have you heard about the best feel-good story of last weekend? Diego the giant tortoise.MANJOO: Oh, yeah, the tortoise that had sex a lot.HU: (Laughter) Did you hear this, Nitasha?TIKU: No, I didn't.HU: So Diego the giant tortoise - I love this story so much. He was sent from the San Diego Zoo down to the Galapagos Islands as part of a breeding program about 40 years ago because there were only something - some very small number of tortoises left on the island of Espanola. And after his campaign of sexual promiscuity, there are now 2,000 tortoises - 40%...TIKU: Oh, my god (laughter).MANJOO: Wow.HU: ...Believed to have been fathered by Diego. But, yeah, Diego is now retiring.MANJOO: So is he going back to LA?HU: He's 100 - (laughter). He's 100 years old.MANJOO: Wait, seriously?HU: And he's fathered...MANJOO: Wow.HU: Yeah.TIKU: Yeah. They live past 100, right? Yeah.HU: He's 100. He's fathered like 800 babies. He's done his work (laughter).TIKU: I feel like we have a lot to learn from the Galapagos because did you guys remember a few years ago, there was this story about a romance between two of the tortoises where they would give each other tomatoes, and they had like decades-long love affair, but then just, like, decided they didn't want anything to do...MANJOO: Oh, wow.TIKU: ...With each other?MANJOO: Maybe it was Diego.HU: (Laughter).TIKU: Honestly, I don't think so.HU: (Unintelligible).TIKU: But I'll send you the link.HU: Next week...TIKU: Yeah.HU: ...In our tortoise chronicles.(SOUNDBITE OF FLEVANS' "FLICKER")HU: So something intentionally different graced the pages of Vogue magazine's Italian edition this month - not radical fashion but a radical idea. Editors put out the magazine without any glossy photographs. The entire edition is made up of illustrations - something not seen in Vogue's pages since the early 20th century. Vogue Italia came out with several different covers for its January issue, each cover by a different artist.These artists don't typically illustrate fashion, so the result is rather striking. One includes a painting of a woman with a long stretched neck and curves in pink and brown. Another by a Mozambique American painter depicts a bloody mosquito hovering near the drawing of a model.To talk about this issue, the magazine's creative director, Ferdinando Verderi, joined me from Milan. He said this decision to go photo free isn't just about art or design. It's about sustainability, starting with what it takes to create a photo shoot.FERDINANDO VERDERI: The photo shoot, which is what everything is made of today in editorial world, is often - especially at this level - a very complex production. There are tons of flights involved. Clothes ship internationally, up to 10 people flying from all over the world to one location and a very huge display of effort that obviously, in the conversation on sustainability, translate into waste, pollution and carbon footprint.HU: We don't think about what's so wasteful, I guess, about a magazine's production until you list things out like this.MANJOO: Well, nor do we. You start looking at your own day to day, and you realize that before speaking about broader topics that you can hardly affect, you better start looking into what you can affect. And I think for us, it was really like the provocation to ourselves. Like, can a magazine be great or better if we drastically challenge the way it's produced?HU: Well, what do you think? What is your reaction to how it turned out as a creative director? And then...VERDERI: Well, obviously, I am partial to this question because I've actually been trying to introduce illustration - or the language since my very first issues a few months ago. I'm new here, a few months in. And I have sort of a lot of heart for illustration and drawing as a medium that connects to the original of Vogue.I'm very pleased with the reception from the public, which has been incredible. And that sort of the main goal for me to see how a visual language that would be replaced, like photography of the main language of fashion. You can attract so much interest and emotions, and also very pleased about how the idea came across.And obviously, this is not just an artist shoot. It's an issue that has a very strong point. I tried to demonstrate it in a lighthearted and positive way, trying to propose what could be a very old solution to a new problem. 'Cause obviously, illustration precedes this all.HU: In this magazine, you're highlighting the cost of production for fashion spreads. But...VERDERI: Yes.HU: ...The production of a fashion spread or a fashion shoot a small compared to the environmental impact of the clothing industry writ large.VERDERI: Yes, yeah.HU: So how are you thinking about the industry in which you work in light of how much it costs in emissions just to produce and manufacture and ship clothing? And then this clothing, obviously, changes styles every season.VERDERI: It's a big conversation. What we did is started from the inside, that we just wanted to look at what we can to affect our day to day and inspire other publications to look into the way we operate. I'm sure that fashion, being a creative industry at heart, will find a solution that has some beauty in it. But it is definitely not an easy one. There is obviously like an inherent conflict between selling clothes and the fact that clothes are often the cause of production processes that pollute. It's hard to imagine the future. But there are still lots of interest and opportunities to make a difference.HU: I want to ask a little bit about Italy because the whole world watched...VERDERI: Yes.HU: ...As so much of Venice flooded this winter. And Venice has always been a city at risk as sea levels rise because of climate change. So I wonder, did the way climate change became so visible in Venice affect your thinking or affect the editor-in-chief's thinking about this issue, and if so, how?VERDERI: I didn't say yet that the savings that are byproducts of this new production went to a foundation in Venice that is related to the conservation of art and the beauty of the city. And...HU: So the proceeds go back to Venice?VERDERI: The savings that resulted from this streamlined production process, which is the one of illustrations versus photography...HU: Oh, right - the savings. OK.VERDERI: Yeah, exactly - went there. And we are dedicating an issue in February partially to this huge problem that Venice is facing. And it is something that is close to us because we are obviously geographically close and culturally very close, but it's symbolic of a broader issue, obviously, that affects so many parts of the world. So Venice and its tight connection to sea level and to nature is, for us, a symbol for, obviously, a global issue.HU: You mentioned that the reaction to this issue has been exceedingly positive. You also mentioned that you wanted this to spark a conversation, a larger conversation about the industry. Has it?VERDERI: I think it has, and I think it has received praise and criticism. The criticism is that - well, you're doing an issue, and then you're going back to doing it normal. Yes, I mean, this is part of the idea. I think this is not the solution, but it is a publication, an experiment to show how creativity, which is one of the Vogue values - creativity is the most relevant powerful force that we are dealing with in this case, and we use that as sort of like a vehicle for change. So I think that the conversation have been achieved. In fact, your talking to us is proof of it. I don't think it's a conversation about Italian Vogue. I think it's a conversation about fashion opening to potentially different ways of thinking about itself.(SOUNDBITE OF FLEVANS' "FLICKER")HU: Thanks again to Ferdinando Verderi, creative director at Vogue Italia. Time for a break - when we come back, a test of how closely you followed some lighter news of the week in our news quiz, Who Said That? I'm Elise Hu, and you're listening to IT'S BEEN A MINUTE from NPR.(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)HU: We're back. You're listening to IT'S BEEN A MINUTE from NPR, the show where we catch up on the week that was. I'm Elise Hu in for Sam Sanders here this week at NPR member station KQED with Nitasha Tiku, tech culture reporter at The Washington Post. Hey, Nitasha.TIKU: Hey, Elise.HU: Also Farhad Manjoo, columnist at The New York Times - hey, Farhad.MANJOO: Hey.HU: OK, don't get nervous. It's my favorite time of the week - time for Who Said That?(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE REAL HOUSEWIVES OF ATLANTA")KANDI BURRUSS: Who had been saying that?PORSHA WILLIAMS: Who said that?KENYA MOORE: Who said that?HU: It's a simple game. I'll share a quote from the week. You guess who said it. You don't have to name the person who gave the quote if you can at least identify the story I'm referring to. Best two out of three wins - wait for it - nothing but, you know, the prize of victory.MANJOO: Right.HU: So first one - this should be easy - "congratulations to those men." Y'all are staring at me with blank faces.MANJOO: Congratulations to those men. I have no idea. It sounds like something Trump tweeted, but...TIKU: Yeah.(SOUNDBITE OF BUZZER)TIKU: It's got to be...HU: No, it's far from it. Think opposite end of the spectrum.MANJOO: Oh.HU: You don't have to know the name.MANJOO: It was the Oscars director category.(SOUNDBITE OF VICTORY TUNE)MANJOO: And someone was announcing it.HU: Issa Rae.MANJOO: OK.TIKU: Oh.MANJOO: Yes, yes.HU: That's actress Issa Rae who said that. She was announcing the Oscar nominees on Monday morning. And that line - let's hear the tape...(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)ISSA RAE: Martin Scorsese, Todd Phillips, Sam Mendes, Quentin Tarantino, Bong Joon-ho.JOHN CHO: Nice.RAE: I did it. I did.CHO: You did it.RAE: Thank you so