The Devil Wore Black Silk Stockings
If you've seen the movie The Devil Wears Prada, then you know what a nightmare of a boss Vogue editor Anna Wintour is. High maintenance, demanding, moody, cold, and unfeeling are just some of the words that describe the way she's portrayed.
Apparently, Wintour was not the first Vogue editor to embody these less-than-delightful qualities.
I'm reading this book about the history of the magazine, and just finished up a section on Edna Woolman Chase, Wintour's predecessor and the longest-serving editor of Vogue to date. She held the editorial reigns of the magazine between the two wars, 1914 and 1951, and by the time she left, Vogue was a world famous brand.
The Vogue of those years--meant to be exclusively read by the likes of the Astors, Vanderbilts, and their affluent high society friends--had certain standards. Chase, though not a member of the American aristocracy, saw to it that she and her staff upheld those standards.
She was famous for insisting that the female members of her staff wore "black silk stockings, white gloves, and a hat." They could "not come to the office in open-toed shoes." To one young writer, she said, "You have a very fine pen, my child, but we must do something about your clothes."
Once, she scolded an editor who tried to commit suicide by saying, "We at Vogue don't throw ourselves under subway trains, my dear. If we must, we take sleeping pills."
And, like Oscar Wilde's Lady Bracknell, she cautioned against the excesses of the French: "Vogue--surely as sophisticated, as modern, as shock proof as one can well be without sacrificing good taste--has come to a place where it actually holds up its hands in horror. And the place, to come directly to the point, is the knee of the women of today....Vogue does not insist that skirts should be long, since long skirts are not the mode. But Vogue does insist that, before buying a [new French] frock, one should look oneself squarely in the legs and temper the length of one's costume to the shape one sees."
If you're interested in the fascinating early history of Vogue--which is also a history of American culture, female beauty, and fashion--click here, where you can also see pictures of its first covers and fashion spreads (interesting tidbit: there were no models back then, just assistants in the dressmakers' shops that were trained to pose and walk the runway).
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Comments:
Oct '10
Re: The Devil Wore Black Silk Stockings
1914 to 1951? Almost convinced myself it was a typo. That's remarkable. Maybe this is mere quibbling, but I'm not sure why you describe her tenure as "between the two wars." It does include the inter-war period, of course, but actually extends from the outbreak of World War I until well into the Korean War.
BTW - am I the only one who wishes a few of the fashion victims one sees on the street would heed Edna Woolman Chase’s sage advice and take a look at how an outfit actually looks on them before inflicting it on the public at large? Am I also alone in thinking that knee length skirts are appropriate in the workplace, not higher? (Yup, though hopelessly out of fashion myself, I somehow feel obliged to comment on an article about Vogue. I must not be getting enough sleep. [:-)
Apr '11
Re: The Devil Wore Black Silk Stockings
There's an interesting chapter in Wilson Bryan Key's Subliminal Seduction titled "The Castrating Cosmo-Vogue." Deals with their respective cover art, among other things. 'Course, it was written back in 1973, so I'm not sure if it's still relevant.