Postcards from Vogue

To say I love stationery would be an understatement. My office is filled with hundreds of lovely notebooks that someday I will allow myself to actually write in rather than just admire!

I love receiving letters on beautiful cards and paper – the art of letter writing is dwindling as more frequently we are receiving electronic communications or texts. I can’t bear that you can send an e-card for Christmas or Birthdays (with the one exception if the recipient is travelling). I save all of my letters and special cards in boxes which are great to look back on some years later. I still have my first love letter, given to me in the playground, wrapped inside a matchbox – I was seven!

So, when Penguin produced the boxed set of 100 postcards from classic covers of Vanity Fair I just had to have them and also buy several copies for my friends who love sending little notes. For over two years we were all hankering for a boxed set of Vogue covers and now I am delighted to say our wishes have been answered.

Mine arrived this morning. I was beside myself with excitement as I ripped open the packaging and spent ages admiring each postcard. From early illustrations – when in 1913 the price of a Vogue cost 25 cents (they are all US Vogue covers) – to modern celebrity covers, shot by the likes of Mario Testino and Patrick Demarchelier.

Since its launch in 1892, Vogue has brought sophistication to its readers around the world. Early illustrations from artists including George Wolfe Plank, Olive Tilton, Pierre Brissaud, and Eduardo Garcia Benito saw ethereal figures of fantasy develop into red-lipped flappers, and as colour photographs began to appear, the women transformed again: from Surrealist images by Horst P. Horst to ‘women in the life of the moment’, captured by Irving Penn.

From the fifties onwards, Vogue women became more accessible still, as models and stars like Elizabeth Taylor, Goldie Hawn, Cindy Crawford, and Cher, with their own distinct personalities, appeared through the lenses of Richard Avedon and Snowdon.

Source: Penguin Books

The only trouble is I now don’t want to send any of them! However my office wall is covered in little white frames (from Ikea) where I frame all my inspirational sayings, illustrations and photos and I am sure quite a few will end up on that ‘wall of fame’. Here are some of my favourites.