1981
This is Brooke Shields, and while I was like, "Hmm, this woman looks familiar," somehow I didn't recognize her? Although now that I KNOW it's her I can obviously see it. I think she is 16 here. That seems... young for Vogue. If you read yesterday's post, you'll know there was a real obsession with fragrance happening toward the end of the 70s, and sure enough, we're picking that thread up with THE FRAGRANGE LIFE.
1982
And here, FRAGRANCE: THE APPEAL, THE MYSTERY. For me the mystery is sincerely why Vogue felt like it needed to explain perfumes to us every May, and I wonder if the answer is: Perfumes were big advertisers. Also "terrifics" is terrible as a a noun, and they ALSO used that word on the cover a year prior. I can't wait to keep looking at these like this and figure out how repetitive covers always are, in ways we don't notice. (This is Nastassja again, by the way, and I must be face-blind to her.)
1982
From July 1980 to November 1988, Richard Avedon shot every single Vogue cover with one exception. (This is Lauren Helm, and I don't know her, but she sems HUGELY distressed and this should be the cover of a Barbara Taylor Bradford novel.) And yes, tons of TERRIFIC ideas in here, including about fragrance.
1984
NOW I recognize Brooke without the help (she's a ripe old 19 now). I regret to inform you that summer looks have been downgraded to SUPER from TERRIFIC (is that a downgrade? It feels like it?), which may have puzzled Brooke while she was modeling because she seems as if someone just told her an unnerving fact. But at least we will always have THE MANY MOODS OF FRAGRANCE.
1985: Shari Belafonte
Oh, thank GOD, summer is terrific once more. Shari is so delighted to ease us back into terrificness. This phase where Vogue had words like GREAT and EASY next to the masthead was truly ridiculous, by the way. I also am curious about "Women & Food -- the consuming passion." Is our passion for food consuming us, or do we have a passion for consumption in general? It's SO Vogue to only just now, in 1985, be discovering that women enjoy food.
1986: Paulina Porizkova
The idea of dieting being bliss is such a bogus 1986 construct. I also don't know what "city, sun // day, night" is even supposed to mean; it's like a bad beat poem. BUT WHAT ABOUT FRAGRANCES?
1987: Tatjana Patitz
We've abandoned fragrance altogther now in favor of wet-look hair. IS THERE SEXY AFTER 40? is the kind of question that makes me howl with laughter now. Back then, I feel like the world was sincerely concerned about this.
1988: Estelle Lefébure
This is sort of cute, but it's amusing to see these three May covers in a row where everyone on this fashion magazine looks nude. "Open-air good looks" is not a thing, either.
1989: Madonna
Anna Wintour had taken over by this point -- November 1988 was her first cover -- and this feels like the least charismatic and most BANAL photo of 1989 Madonna that you could imagine.
1990: Ivana Trump
Well, she looks good.
1991: Kim Basinger
First, I had to stop and think who "Jerry Jagger" was, because I've NEVER thought of her as anything but Jerry Hall, so my mind leapt to Mick having some older darts-playing balding brother who wears short-sleeve Union Jack button-downs and has tufty eyebrows. Second, "How Hot Can She Get?" feels like a very strange gauntlet to throw down about your cover subject. I will say that this more flagrant sex appeal than we've seen on a May Vogue yet, including the Madonna one.
1992: Caudia Schiffer
And it continues with Claudia's boobs here. This cover somehow both sexualizes AND lightly infantilizes her? I think it's that the ruffly gingham feels childlike but her chest spilling out of it... does not. Her face is so great, though. Her eyes have a secret. And they are that she is going to poison you.
1993: Princess Di
Dieting has died, it seems, after being BLISS only a few short years ago. But in May 1993, Diana still lived. This seems to be a news photo. It's a very strange choice for a summery cover, and I assume it's the lei that governed it; the blazer feels too heavy to me, though. You can see SO MUCH of William in this photo of Diana; it's quite amazing. As is the headline -- this idea of leading royalty into reality, a headline I imagine Anna once feverishly dreamed of resurrecting to put on a cover about Meghan. Chuck and Di had separated by this point, so that reality -- disentangling such a high-profile couple -- might have been part of the reference, in addition to her hands-on approach. She backed away from public life seven months later.
1994: Geena Davis
Secrets of a scent seller? ARE FRAGRANCES BACK???? Also, I miss Geena.
1995: Claudia Schiffer
The pastel colors of this are so bleh to me. I love Claudia's spring-green swimsuit and i wish all that peach and pink weren't stepping on it. That belt, though, is so hilariously pointless -- it reminds me of the idea of a swimsuit that's not meant to be SWUM in -- and the cover is certainly an assortment of ideas for which the fashion industry and Vogue often come under fire, such promoting the pursuit of physical perfection.
1996: Niki Taylor
Was the bikini ever gone? And WTF is this BLOUSE they're making Niki wear?!? We also need to talk about how NOT surprising it is that a) the Olympic athletes aren't somehow on the cover, and b) that Vogue would be promoting cooking with Olestra, a chemical that was known to cause anal leakage. Anything in pursuit of living fat free!
1996: Naomi
There was another cover, which I assume was part of a fold-out, given that the cover line here doesn't make sense if you haven't seen the first half. Naomi is blurry, right? Weird.
1997
This is Georgina Grenville, with whom I am not familiar. We're deep into the Steven Meisel years (with one or two Herb Ritts interludes) so maybe she was a favorite of his, as she got the cover in August of this year also. The colors of the rest of the cover are once again just terrible. I DO want to read about Diana's royal yard sale.
1998: Liz Hurley
Last year was the best bathing suits, and this year is MORE best bathing suits, but this time I guess every body is included -- and the cover lines are SLIGHTLY less "be thin" and more "be fit," I suppose? I do think Liz Hurley looks great.
1999: Carmen Kass
And YET MORE best bathing suits. I hadn't heard of Carmen Kass (I didn't ever follow fashion until we started noodling around with this site, and even then it took a while) until I was working on ANTM, and Tyra and Miss J kept talking about how Kahlen from Season 4 reminded them of her. It's eerily true. This is a pretty good cover -- lots to catch the eye, and the colors keep it simple.
2000: Gisele
Whereas THIS is a freaking snore, and if you have a story available on Christy Turlington, why not put HER on the cover?
2001: Carmen Kass
"WHERE'S THE BOEUF?" mad me laugh out loud. It's also a testament to Vogue's continued interest in models at this point that Nicole Kidman is featured in here but is NOT on the cover. However, we're about at the end of that era...
2002: Natalie Portman
... because from here on out, all the May covers are actresses, except for the very few that are devoted to models en masse, which you'll see in a minute. This is... fine? Natalie is not a very strong model.
2003: Cameron Diaz
Whereas Cameron WAS once a model, but this pose has a lot going on and we lose her neck. Also, I was unaware that she ever was a red-carpet rebel. Are they referring to her penchant for hats? She really did cleave to fedoras and berets for a while.
2004: Nicole Kidman
This is quite stunning.
2005: Liya Kebede
WAIT, I lied, there is a model on the cover on her own! Liya got the nod for her philanthropic work. However, they stuck her with a cover where she's slumped against a wall and has SO MANY WORDS stamped all over her that my eyes are tired just from CONSIDERING reading any of them.
2006: Keira Knightley
"Knightley News" is so amusingly hacky, I can't even. As is the "BLUES CLUES" headline, because Vogue does not strike me as a publication that references popular children's programs as a matter of course. As Keira goes, it's a great picture. She really jumps out at you.
2007: Models
Wowzers. Okay. It's interesting to see a) the lack of diversity here with Chanel Iman being stuck on the fold, and b) how many of these women are recognizable and/or working still. This is from the era when Jess and I were covering Fashion Week, and man, Jessica Stam was EVERYWHERE, but she's kind of disappeared. Also, in this photo, Sasha, Caroline, Raquel, and Stammy look eerily homogenous/alike, Agnyess Deyn's really original and funky-fun vibe has been unforgivably tamped down, and this MIGHT be the only bad photo of Coco Rocha -- for me inarguably the most gifted model of the bunch -- ever taken.
2008: GOOP
I didn't like this back then, and I don't like it now. So I know it's not my disgust with her talking. She looks bored and mildly confused and as if she's astonished the photographer isn't more amusing.
2009: More models
The actual cover of this one is... okay? Liya and Natalia are obviously still recognizable faces. Once you open out the fold, though, Isabeli seems so clearly like her photo was tilted and then slapped in there. It's a jumble and not a very interesting one. Most of them don't even look great. Caroline Trentini is the only one who's really arresting me.
2010: SJP
This might as well be Women's Day.
2011: Reese
This was, I believe, pegged to Water for Elephants. I do not know why Reese needs to be clutching the pole of someone's boat dock on a low-tide day. The hairdo also very nearly smothers the snarl in her eyes.
2012: ScarJo
And THIS is so tepid, it might as well have been from the Ariel Foxman InStyle years.
2013: Carey Mulligan
I'm curious what made them shift all of a sudden from May issues being about summer, to being about spring. I know we're often reading them in April; is that a newish timeline, or something? Or did they just decide April is too early to preview summer? It's a LONG history that they changed here. ALSO: This was not a great movie, and Carey looks CRAZY in this shot -- too much of everything. She's completely lost in there.
2014: Emma Stone
I rather like this of Emma. It has a Singles vibe to it, and it occurs to me that I'd have loved seeing Emma Stone take on a 1995 relaionship comedy-drama where she has to wear that hat. It works on her.
2015: Carey Mulligan
This is the polar opposite of the Carey cover from two slides ago, to the point where... could we not have COMPROMISED on the makeup approach? She looks far lovelier here, simpler, and in that very cute dress. But she also looks a bit zoned out.
2016: Taylor Swift
I believe this is the year she co-chaired the Met. I don't love this, but I do admire that she's folded up her body in a way where you can still see how long and lean she is -- that feels like the kind of posing Tyra always wanted to teach people and that Coco Rocha knows how to do so well. You get across the illusion of length.
2017: Katy Perry
And THIS was the year SHE co-hosted, I think. Commes des Garcons was a weird choice for her. This cover is also... I mean, it IS bold, in a sense. You connect with her eyes. But she also looks like she blew in on the wing of a plane.
2018: Amal Clooney
Remember these two? I barely do. This is a great Pantene commercial but a really boring (and faintly smarmy?) cover
2019: Kim
The co-chair this year was Lady Gaga, not Kim, but Kim attracted a lot of attention for her collaboration with Mugler wherein she looked as if she were emerging from a body of water. It WAS admittedly very good. I have to assume this was connected with that. I may be impatient with Kim in a lot of ways, but this is a pretty striking cover.
2020: Gal Gadot
We posted this already within the last few weeks, but it felt weird to leave it out. It's not my cup of tea. Gal looks like she's fighting to keep her eys open; it has no energy to it at all. Compare that with Kim's, and I hate to say it, but Kim's feels more alive to me.