Vogue Magazine

Vogue is a fashion and lifestyle magazine covering many topics including fashion, beauty, culture, living, and runway. Vogue began as a weekly newspaper in 1892 in the United States, before becoming a monthly publication years later.

The British Vogue was the first international edition launched in 1916, while the Italian version Vogue Italia has been called the top fashion magazine in the world.As of today, there are 23 international editions.

In 1892, Arthur Baldwin Turnure, an American businessman, founded Vogue as a weekly newspaper in the United States. From its inception, the magazine targeted the new New York upper class. The magazine at this time was primarily concerned with fashion, with coverage of sports and social affairs included for its male readership.

Condé Montrose Nast purchased Vogue in 1909 one year before Turnure's death, and gradually grew the publication. He changed it to a unisex magazine and started Vogue overseas in the 1910s. Under Nast, the magazine soon shifted its focus to women, and in turn the price was soon raised. The magazine’s number of publications and profit increased dramatically under Nast’s management. By 1911, the Vogue brand had garnered a reputation that it continues to maintain, targeting an elite audience and expanding into the coverage of weddings. According to Condé Nast Russia, after the First World War made deliveries in the Old World impossible, printing began in England. The decision to print in England proved to be successful causing Nast to release the first issue of French Vogue in 1920.

This is part 2 of a 12-part series on Vogue magazine.
For earlier magazines see part 1 also.

1909 December 4
Christmas Gifts
Cover by Will Foster

1910 January 15
The Motor Girl
Cover by Stuart Travis

1910 January 22
Special Fashion Number
Cover by Mortimer

1910 February 12
Suggestions for Fancy Dress

1910 April 1
Millinery Number

1910 April 15
Special Fashion NUmber
Cover by Helen Dryden

Helen Dryden

Helen Dryden (1883-)was born into a wealthy Baltimore family. She demonstrated an interest and ability in art that led her to briefly attend the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and to study landscape painting under Hugh Breckenridge for four years.

Her intense desire to develop illustrations in her own style and on her own terms led her to move to a tiny Washington Square studio in New York City in around 1908. Between odd jobs she prepared a portfolio for the fashion editor at Vogue, where she was “coldly and flatly turned down.” Her samples were kept on file.

Soon after her rejection, situations changed quickly at Vogue. In 1909, Condé Montrose Nast purchased the magazine and assumed command as owner and editor. Reviewing recent illustration submissions, he embraced Helen Dryden’s non-photographic, simplified and stylised artwork.

Dryden was hired as a fashion editor, and within three months produced the first of approximately 100 fanciful cover designs that appeared from 1910 to 1923.

Vogue’s premier editorial and artwork positioned it as an influential voice in the developing fashion industry, and through her cover designs, Dryden also became a trendsetter for the high-fashion social elite. Within a few years of her many initial rejections, she was repeatedly referred to as “America’s most highly paid female artist” in numerous published articles.

Later Dryden turned to Industrial Design , In November, 1934, Dryden was hired as a stylist at Studebaker, while she continued to report on the state of automotive design and pursue her other commercial design activities.

Helen Dryden's Studebaker President 21

1910 May 15
Cover by F. Rose

1910 June 1
Cover by The Kinneys

The Kinneys were American husband and wife artists and illustrators: Troy Sylvanus Kinney (1871-1938) and Margaret West Kinney (1872-1952).

Troy Kinney attended Yale University, graduating in 1896, and then after a brief time illustrating for newspapers in the Baltimore, Maryland area, he moved to study at the Art Institute of Chicago, where he would later become a full member of the Chicago Board of Etchers. He met and in 1900 married his wife and collaborator Margaret. They were premier illustrators of the early 20th century, creating works together under the name "The Kinneys", including scores of books, and covers for Harper's Bazaar and Vogue magazines.

1910 July 15
Cover by "J.G."

1910 August 1
Cover by Helen Dryden

1910 August 15
Cover by F. Graham Cootes

F. Graham Cootes (1879-1960) was a popular illustrator and portraitist in the twentieth century. Born in Staunton and educated at the University of Virginia, he entered New York School of Art (later Parsons, The New School for Design) in 1902. He opened a Manhattan studio by 1906 and gained success as an illustrator. He also established himself as a respected portraitist of prominent figures in New York and Washington, DC. He semi-retired in the 1920s, only to re-emerge the following decade after losing much of the family wealth in the stock market crash. During this second period he produced his most famous work, the official White House portrait of Woodrow Wilson.

1910 October 1
Cover by Helen Dryden

1910 October 15
Cover by Helen Dryden

1910 November 1
Smart - Authoritative Winter Fashions
Cover by "J.G."

1911 February 1
Smart Fashions for Limited Incomes
Cover by Helen Dryden

1911 March 1
Patern Number
Cover by Frank X. Leyendecker

Frank Xavier Leyendecker and his brother Joseph Christian Leyendecker were born in Montabour, Germany, and moved to Chicago in 1882. They both went on to study at the acclaimed Académie Julian in Paris. There, the brothers studied under the esteemed faculty and developed their blossoming artistic talents.

In 1897, the brothers returned to Chicago to begin careers in illustration. Unfortunately, Frank returned with addiction problems, which would plague him for the rest of his life. The two brothers set up a shared art studio in Chicago where they experienced early success in advertising.

After this initial success, Frank fell under the overwhelming shadow of his prolific older brother, and became known as “The Lesser Leyendecker.”

1911 March 15
Cover by "J.G."

1911 June 15
Fashions for Out of Doors
Cover by Helen Dryden

1911 July 1
Tables of Fashionable Hotesses
Cover by Mrs. Newell Tilton

1911 August 1
Cover by George Wolfe Plank

1911 October 15
Cover by Helen Dryden

1911 November 1
Cover by Mrs. Newell Tilton

1911 December 1
Cover by Jessie Gillespie

Jessie Gillespie Willing (1888-1972) was born in Brooklyn, New York. Her father was the Art Editor for the Associate Sunday Magazine. A young prodigious talent, Jessie became a successful female illustrator, best known for her work for the Girl Scouts of America, Association Men Magazine for the YMCA, Ladies Home Journal, Life Magazine and Vogue Magazine in the early 1900's. She chose to use her middle name as her artist's surname to obscure her relation to her influential father. Gillespie worked in the strongly gendered mode of silhouette illustration, a holdover from 18th and 19th century folk art.

1911 December 15
Perennial Interests of Christmas
Cover by George Wolfe Plank

George Wolfe Plank (1883–1965) was chiefly remembered for his long-term association with Vogue Magazine, which resulted in years of covers in an Art Deco style related to that of Helen Dryden and influenced, by among others, Edmund Dulac.

Plank's work has been compared with such artists as Arthur Rackham, Edmund Dulac, Alphonse Mucha and even Gustav Klimt. His work is characterised by broad fields of bright colour setting off the mass and line of his principal figures. His composition is clear and simple, the wealth of sartorial detail notwithstanding. Plank broke onto the Vogue scene with his mature style almost completely established and worked for some years with no real rivals before Helen Dryden's work matured and she became one of the most important of his colleagues. William Packer described Plank's concept of fashion as "ideal, bizarre and improbable, at once adventurous and yet romantic and nostalgic".

1912 February 1
Smart Fashions for Limited Incomes

1912 March 1
Spring Pattern Number
Cover by Arthur Finley

1912 March 15
Dress Materials Number
Cover by George Wolfe Plank

1912 April 15
The Final Word on Spring & Summer Fashions
Cover by Helen Dryden

1912 May 1
Cover by Frank X. Leyendecker

1912 June 1
Cover by Wilson Karcher

1912 June 15
Cover by Helen Dryden

1912 July 15
Cover by Helen Dryden

1912 August 1
Cover by George Wolfe Plank

1912 August 15
Children's Number
Cover by Arthur Finlay

1912 November 1
Winter Fashions NUmber
Cover by Helen Dryden

1912 December 15
Vanity and Dramatic Number
Cover by Frank X. Leyendecker

1912 December 15
Cover by Helen Dryden

1913 January 1
Cover by George Wolfe Plank

1913 January 15
White and Southern Fashions
Cover by Mrs. Newell Tilton

1913 March 1
Spring Patterns Number
Cover by Helen Dryden

1913 March 15
Spring Dress Materials and Trimmings
Cover by Frank X. Leyendecker

1913 May 1
Many suggestions for the bride's trousseau
Cover by George Wolfe Plank

1913 June 1
Hot Weather Fashions
Cover by Helen Dryden

1913 June 15
Fashions for the Traveler European Interests
Cover by Sarah Stilwell Weber

Sarah Stilwell Weber (1878–1939) was an American illustrator who studied at Drexel Institute under Howard Pyle. She illustrated books and national magazines, like The Saturday Evening Post, Vogue, and The Century Magazine.

Born in Concordville, Pennsylvania, in 1897 she attended Drexel Institute, where illustrator Howard Pyle was an innovative and popular teacher.

In 1910 The New York Times published an article "A Latter-Day Industry and Its Rewards: How a Group of Illustrators is Making Fortunes by Drawing Pictures of the 'Modern Woman'" in which Weber was estimated to be tied for the second highest paid woman illustrator with Elizabeth Shippen Green. Each estimated to make the equivalent of around a quarter of a million dollars today. Jessie Willcox Smith was said to be the highest paid women illustrator.