Paris - Vogue Paris magazine is already centenary and the
fashion capital dedicates an exhibition to it a year late due to Covid, a
tribute that reveals the ins and outs of its complex relationship with its
American older sister.
Vogue Paris was launched in 1920 by Condé Nast, the New York
magnate who in the following decades would give his name to an entire media
emporium, with titles such as New Yorker or Vanity Fair.
But at first, the magazine in its French edition was nothing
more than a modest appendage to the parent company, Vogue in short, the
essential guide for women of the American gentry since 1909.
"At first it was really what would be called a
translation of American Vogue," explains Sylvie Lécallier, the curator of
the exhibition that opens on Saturday at the recently remodeled Palais Galliera
in Paris.
But France had its own elite and Paris felt, with its own
arguments, the cultural capital of the world. The magazine management is happy
to accept money and modern printing techniques from across the Atlantic.
But when it comes to fashion and art, the Parisian
intelligentsia have their own criteria.
"In 1929 the idea arose of becoming autonomous, of
giving oneself a truly Parisian identity," explains Lécallier.
It is the era of the artistic avant-garde, Coco Chanel,
photographer Man Ray and a whole Parisian bohemian "completely opposed to
the New York office," he adds.
The takeoff of the French magazine and a complex and
intriguing history begins, between an increasingly proud American economic
power and an artistic medium, that of the French capital, increasingly risky
and independent.
Vogue marks the step in the world of fashion in New York, in
London (where it appeared in 1916) and in Paris. A short-lived Cuban version,
Vogue Havana, was even born between 1918 and 1923.
But it is between New York and Paris that the pulse is
fought. And the correspondence, exhibited for the first time to the general
public in Paris, does not hide the small quarrels.
They are "letters, memos that tell of these differences
on the way of creating the magazine, but at the same time are very stimulating
for everyone," says the curator of the exhibition.
At the helm of Vogue USA is a woman of determined genius and
Victorian tastes, Edna Woolman Chase.
'Nothing is understood'
His tone is sour. "'What you are doing is not right,
nothing is understood. In the exterior photos nothing can be
distinguished," explains curator Lécallier humorously, summarizing the
style battles.
"The entire history of Vogue, over 100 years, is one of
twists and turns, of ways to gain autonomy, and then return to the giron of the
New York Condé Nast group," he adds.
"It is not conflictive," says Lécallier. On the
American side, a practical and commercial spirit. On the Parisian side,
rebellion and fantasy. But a shared passion: fashion.
"Paris as a place of experimentation, to try to find
new photographers. Because in New York there are none. They need new talents,
and in the 1930s, it is Paris where things move," says the curator.
Successive French editors, such as Michel de Brunhoff and
Edmonde Charles-Roux, will have to "deal" with Woolman Chase until
1954, the year the lady retires.
It wasn't all fights. It was Vogue in the United States that
supported the French magazine when the German occupation of Paris occurred in
1940.
For five years, Vogue Paris was not published due to the
refusal of the Nazi authorities. What saved the magazine from the
collaborationist humiliation that affected other publications.
Then the tension returned, between a direction determined to
defend the values of French haute couture, against the
"ready-to-wear" American version.
It is a continuous tension, which to this day has not ended.
Vogue is currently under the reins of another fashion legend, the
British-American Anna Wintour, also of iron reputation.
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