1941
This photo really, really feels like Vogue wants you to think it's Katharine Hepburn. Also, I keep thinking that's her hair in ringlets, but NO, it's a fur hat that is WIG SHAPED.
1941
"Is Mother gone? I've hidden my diaphragm in here."
1942
"I wish one of the 40 facts on fur had been, 'Don't hide your diaphragm in it.'"
1942
"HELLO EVERYONE. Behold my academics beret!"
1943
"Are you there, God? It's me, your undercover agent. I bring yet more intel on furs."
1943
This outfit is made of way more bits and pieces than I ever wanted to bother with in college.
1944
"Dammit, we forgot THE COVER. Just... shit. Put a flower plate on someone's head and call it a hat."
1944
"This is it, Sarah. THIS is the knit cap of your sexual awakening."
1945
This is clearly before Vogue figured out that you can cover up your masthead with the model's face, and not the other way around.
1945
What... has happened here?
1946
"WHY did I crawl out of my sex yurt?!? I shall turn around posthaste."
1946
Vogue is SUCH a snob about "smart"ness. Perhaps they mean "smart" as in "put together," but somehow I doubt it. I feel like this poor girl's shadow has gone rogue and is trying to poke her in the head.
1947
"Spam? Again? You have got to be shitting me."
1947
"I have news. I've invented the hackey sack."
1948
"I'll keep my gloves, thank you. If I remove them, I will shoot ice all over town and I nearly killed my sister that way so please get out of my business thank yooooooou."
1948
"MY hands shoot middle fingers."
1949
"An AFFAIR, you say? Do go on -- what, no, I am not activating a tiny recording device tucked into my pants pocket, why do you ask?"
1950
This woman and I both agree that "the price a point" is not a complete thought.
1950
"Jeeves? Do be a lamb and close my purse. I'm having a devilish time juggling it with my brick of C4."
1951
I misread that cover line as "Farmers in Spain," which would have been an enormous departure for Vogue.
1952
This woman looks FABULOUS. And also, I suspect, would take you for a boozy lunch at the Russian Tea Room and lecture you on the merits of taking a much younger lover.
1953
"In college, you will start seeing four of everything. Blurrily. Very blurrily."
1953
This woman has an Anne Hathaway vibe.
1954
It's true. In 1954 EVERYBODY who was ANYBODY stood at a 45-degree angle.
1954
Is the news in, and it is tweeds, or is the news actually being smuggled inside tweeds? (I do love this smug cover, though. This woman KNOWS THINGS.)
1955
"Jinx! Ha ha ha you owe me a Coca-Cola. That, or we fight to the death."
1956
Yes but I want the OLD way to wear the new fashions.
1957
Well, THE NEXT HAT is obviously our next book.
1958
I wonder who the dashing women of the USA were determined to be. (I looked up the article and could only see a tiny bit of it, but it appears the answer is, women who live on the outskirts of town.)
1959
"My clothes have ALL the answers... sewn into the lining."
1959
So, Miss Rhinegold was a contest to be the pretty female face of Rhinegold beer. At one point as many ballots were cast as for president (but repeat voters were allowed), and Tippi Hedren was the runner-up and it's how Hitchcock noticed her. Now THAT is zing, in Vogue's awkward cover parlance.
1960
I misread that at first as "Quick taste of new boobs." No.
1960
DRAMA in the SHOE WARDROBE! When I was a kid there was a short show called Hatty Town, all about -- yes -- anthropomorphized hats. We need one with shoes that is like a nighttime soap.
1961
Wow an expose on self-respect AND on birth control.
1961
"Wait but which am I? Coming? Going? Staying? TELL ME! I can't take it anymore!"
1962
Dear Abe Barrows: Stuff it. Regards, Heather.
1962
That is a VERY assertive wearing of a turban from Wilhelmina Cooper.
1963
Whereas here, I am concerned she has snapped her foot.
1963
I believe Devastating Velvet is the sequel to International Velvet.
1964 - Jean Shrimpton
"Chicerinos"? Stop it. That cannot have been a thing.
1965
Stop trying to make fetch happen, Vogue!
1965
I wonder, by the by, when Vogue decided to use/to stop using the UK spelling "colour." Also, I feel like we've seen variations on this cover concept a few times, most recently on Jodie Turner-Smith.
1966
"What? Is the camera on? Sorry, I was thinking about the bullfighter."
1966
Vogue also was really into psychic hairdressers at this point.
1967 - Twiggy
So everyone had to be pretty, witty, romantic, bright, AND young? That is a lot of pressure. Did they also have to render slightly blurry, because that's what's happening here with Twiggy.
1967 - Mia Farrow
I'll tell you what makes California go: air conditioning.
1968
Once again I am compelled to hope that what "bright" girls think about beauty is, "It's completely okay to be into WHATEVER I am into."
1968 - Lauren Hutton
Okay, I also misread this as "Crisis: How to Fake It." That's a better article, I think. I love the freckles and the tartan cape here.
1969 - Jacqueline Bisset
It's amazing that Vogue is SO openly approaching every subject as, "Hey, Old Crones, here is what Kids Today are into, which you certainly do not know about, as you are shriveled."
1969 - Goldie
I laughed out loud at this cover. It is very Goldie, but it is also CRAZY. She looks possessed.
1970
"The Beautiful Throat" is hilariously niche.
1970
MORE BABIES. HURRY UP! FIND A BABY!
1971
Vogue, always right there on the sexy contact-lens beat.
1971
Wow. We just had Anne's 70th birthday, and this issue commemorated her 21st. This cover model is deeply unamused to think that she, too, will be in her 70s someday.
1972
RED ALERT: Vogue has discovered sweaters! They are IT.
1972
I know Lauren Hutton was a super successful model, but I feel like she almost always looks terrible on Vogue covers. And please do allow Kurt Vonnegut to tell women what it is that they want. I'm sure he absolutely has us pegged.
1973
This one is better of Lauren, I think because the styling is gentler. But she still seems spacey?
1974
This is her historic first cover, and it was overdue, and also so much better than the glazed ones around it.
1975 - Rosie Vela
She may only be slightly awake.
1976 - Rosie Vela
This is the same model, and she looks totally different and actually... gasp... alert. I also need to know what to steal from a man, so I hope someone out there read this and took notes.
1977
Okay, and here we're going to have another repeat. Peggy Dillard here landed the cover for 1977 in a red shirt, with red lipstick...
1978
... and landed the 1978 cover in... a red shirt of some kind... and reddish lipstick. They couldn't even check their work from a year prior and shake up their approach?!?
1979 - Kim Alexis
Where IS Kim Alexis? I wonder why Christie Brinkley got the pop-culture longevity. Is it JUST because of William Joel?
1980 - Gia Carangi
This woman appears to exist irrespective of the cover lines around her. She is wounded. She has been WRONGED. And she is about to spin on her heel and leave, weeping beautifully, and maybe "accidentally" knocking over a lit candle on her way.