Fire bombs, fashions and fortitude... why Vogue embodied the Blitz spirit
there, firemen were hosing down the burning building.
Miller, like Beaton, was fascinated by the scenes she witnessed after the Blitz.
Some images were published by Audrey in Vogue. Others were put into a book, Grim Glory, which was meant for an American audience to show how brave Londoners were in the face of German bombing.
By 1944, Miller had war accreditation as a US citizen and could work as a photographer abroad. Audrey was delighted when Miller was sent to Normandy to photograph an evacuation hospital after D-Day. Her resulting Vogue feature showed wounded soldiers, doctors desperately trying to help a dying man.
Miller’s writing was powerfully descriptive. Audrey always edited her work and would not let anyone touch the precious copy. There was a chemistry between the two women. Lee was dangerously, gloriously brave but she also had a brilliant eye for the human detail.
Audrey was a constant support to her. When Miller was in despair over her writing, she would lash out at Audrey who took her tantrums in her stride.
After Normandy,
Miller went to St
Malo and she ended up in the middle of a war zone.
Her report from the siege raw and her images are is vivid. Once again, Audrey published as much as she could in Vogue. She sent her a telegram: “GOOD GIRL, GREAT ADVENTURE, WONDERFUL STORY”.
Miller went on and Audrey kept up the articles: liberated Paris in autumn, Alsace in winter, Cologne in spring.And … Buchenwald. She visited the concentration camp a week or so after it had been liberated in April 1945. She wrote to Audrey with her report: “I IMPLORE YOU TO BELIEVE THIS IS TRUE”. Audrey did. In the Victory issue of Vogue in June 1945, she published a photograph of bodies piled up in a corner.
It is a Audrey’s mark of character and her determination to make Vogue relevant in wartime that the President of the Board of Trade called her the most powerful woman in London.
Audrey was not brave like her brilliant stars, Miller and Beaton, but she was resolute when it came to getting her message over.
After the war she continued to push British Vogue in new and bold directions. She employed a motoring editor because women should not only learn to drive but to know what was under the bonnet.
Independence was one of her mantras. She employed women who were married with children – something unusual at the time.
Audrey looked beyond the superficial and took risks that she believed would pay off. Sometimes it did not. The photographer John Deakin had the misfortune to be hired and fired twice by the same editor. Audrey believed Deakin had real talent but she sacked him for possibly selling Vogue’s cameras in Paris. She rehired him five years later only to sack him again for being too difficult to work with.
In the end, Audrey Withers will probably be remembered for her collaboration with Miller. But she deserves to be considered a first among equals with other great feminists of the pre-feminist era.
●●Dressed For War: The Story Of Audrey Withers, Vogue Editor Extraordinaire From The Blitz To The Swinging Sixties, by Julie Summers (Simon and Schuster, £20). For free UK delivery, call Express Bookshop on 01872 562 310 or order via expressbookshop. co.uk. Please note we are no longer accepting cheques or postal orders