Vogue’s First Color Cover
365 days of fashion: the e-ncyclopedia of fashion
Thursday, September 7, 2023
Welcome back to our “Iconic fashion magazine covers” section. Last time, we talked about the first woman of color to appear on the cover of Vogue, and today, we wanted to cover another milestone in the history of fashion magazines - the first color cover of Vogue.
In 1932, American photographer Edward Steichen shot the first color photograph ever printed in Vogue. It was one of a kind because it marked the arrival of fashion photography in the glossy publication.
In our age of the internet and access to color photography, it can be hard to imagine that this accessibility did not exist before or was very rare. In the first decades of the 20th century, magazine covers would often be the only full-color artwork people had regular access to, so you can understand why they were an object of desire.
The earliest illustrations were often grayscale,