There’s so much knowledge and pleasure to be gained from perusing old copies of magazines and for vintage fashion lovers, none more insightful and fascinating than Vogue. In the first of a series, fashion historian Judith Watt pays tribute to and guides us through one of her favourite issues from Vintage Academe’s collection.

British Vogue, June 1950

This is one of Vogue’s most iconic covers. The sensational black and white photograph by Irving Penn of one of his favourite models, Jean Patchett, in her Lilly Daché hat and veil, had appeared on the cover of American Vogue’s celebrated April 1 1950 issue (so important is this Vogue cover image, a platinum-palladium print of Penn’s photograph sold at Christie’s New York December 2008 sale for $194,000).

It’s a fascinating read on many levels. Editor Audrey Withers writes in Vogue’s Eye View’ with gratitude of how the American office had been sending the London staff

of Condé Nast Publications a monthly food parcel since 1945. This was a transitional era, with George VI on the throne, pre the celebratory Festival of Britain and the British still strictly rationed until 1952 as the country rebuilt itself after WW2.

Advertising takes up the first 55 pages and provides two gems among the panoply of clothes, scent and accessories. The first is amusingly ‘Keep abreast of beauty’ for ‘Partos Brassieres and Belts’. It is

illustrated by the Hungarian artist Marcel Vertès (1895 – 1961), whose brilliant contributions to both Harpers Bazaar and Vogue between the wars make him one of the most important fashion illustrators of the twentieth century. His advertisements for Schiaparelli’s scent ‘Shocking’ are amongst his best known commercial work, but this colour picture of a woman in a black evening dress examining framed paintings of a bra and girdle respectively at an art gallery is

typically facetious.

Equally fabulous is Grau’s colour image for Elizabeth Arden’s seasonal range of beauty products, “When summer skies are blue ...You’ll want to be the loveliest thing under the sun.” Italian René Grau (1909-2004) brought a distinctive flair to both editorial and advertising illustration – particularly for the Dior perfumes in the late 1940s. His trip to America in 1950 resulted in new contracts – demonstrated here for Elizabeth Arden by a soignée beauty lying in the sun, wearing Flamenco lipstick and little else. Advertising art, said Grau, had a ‘mode of expression’ that corresponded with his talent for ‘graphic simplification’.
Although British, American and French Vogue shared covers and editorial on haute couture, each edition maintained a national identity. Fashion editorial makes up most of the issue (32 pages) and ranges from haute couture to tennis dress. For the British ‘Black and

White Idea’, the focus was on the London Season, with an amusing text by satirical actress

Joyce Grenfell called ‘Dressing For Occasions’, a satirical view on ‘the fussiness, the tasteless redundant ornament, that too often mar our summer scene’. Norman Parkinson and Don Honeyman provide the four black and white fashion photographs of gowns by three couturiers: Victor Stiebel (1907-1976), Julian Rose, Digby Morton (1906-1983) and smart west London retailer Bradley. Facing each image are four superb black and white illustrations by John Ward RA (1917-2007), each depicting beautifully dressed Society women at the races, the opera and outside Westminster Abbey. He worked for Vogue from the late 1940s to 1951, and his neo-romanticism and sheer graphic panache is beautifully demonstrated here.

The high-fashion story is ‘Little Evenings’, photographed by Lee Miller and Norman Parkinson. Footnote: Christian Dior (1905-1957) had

launched his ‘Vertical Line’ for the spring 1950 collections. Striking are a Dior-influenced dress by Jean Dessès ‘dark, severely straight ... finely accordion-pleated navy blue silk surah’ and a marvellous red and green organza evening dress by Madame Grès (1903–1993), with a fitted bodice and ‘billowing skirt – a mist of green drifting over a cloud of red.’ And then there is a ‘magnificent ball dress’ by Dior, shot in minimal style by Miller, a perfect demonstration of the new silhouette, a straight line between shoulder and hip. The arms are worn bare and the white silk poult gown has a strapless buttoned bodice cuffed with azure blue. ‘The skirt
is folded to give the effect of a narrow underskirt, with bouffant panniers over each hip which dip down to the floor. Wide gathered panels of azure blue spill down each side from the waist to the hem.’

Under the editorship of Audrey Withers, British Vogue

emphasised culture and the arts; you will find portraits of actor Gregory Peck on the set of ‘Captain Horatio Hornblower’, chorographer George Balanchine and the cellist Pablo Casals, the latter a terrific image by photographer Gijon Mili. But like all good magazines, the pleasure lies in browsing, and there are tips on flower arranging, letter writing plus the glories of frozen food: ‘Dinner is Thawed’. This Vogue is a delight for social historians