Vogue started as a weekly society paper that also courted men
The first Vogue, out in New York in December 1892 for ten cents, chronicled the parties, pastimes and clothes of Manhattan's upper class, with sport and social news thrown in for male readers. Only after Condé Nast bought it in 1909 did it become the women's fashion magazine the world knows.
Its founder, the businessman Arthur Baldwin Turnure, wanted a paper celebrating what he called the ceremonial side of life, appealing to sages and debutantes alike. He served as publisher, with Josephine Redding as editor and Harry Whitney McVickar as art director. The target audience was elite New York and anyone who hoped to look like it. After Turnure died in April 1906, Marie Harrison became majority owner, and three years later Nast took over.
Nast reshaped almost everything. He aimed the magazine at women, raised its price, added weddings coverage and started overseas editions in the 1910s. When the First World War cut off deliveries to Europe, he began printing in England, which grew into British Vogue in 1916, the first international edition, and French Vogue followed in 1920. He introduced colour printing and the two-page spread. In July 1932 the American edition ran its first colour photographic cover, Edward Steichen's picture of a swimmer holding a beach ball aloft, and through the late 1930s photographs pushed illustrated covers aside.
Readership rose during the Depression and again in the Second World War, with the former Vanity Fair editor Frank Crowninshield in charge. In the 1950s Jessica Daves, who believed taste could be taught, edited it as a way of educating the public and strengthened its arts and literary writing. Anna Wintour ran American Vogue from 1988 to 2025 and now oversees it globally, with Chloe Malle handling editorial content since 2025.
The publishing rhythm has kept shrinking. From weekly it went to roughly twice a month in 1910, became monthly in 1973, merged some summer and winter issues from 2020, and from 2026 prints eight issues a year. Headquartered at One World Trade Center, it counted 28 international editions in March 2025, eleven of them run directly by Condé Nast and the rest under licence, with Vogue Italia sometimes called the leading fashion title anywhere.
Source: Vogue (magazine)
