EDITOR’S LETTER
Ilove my job but never more so than when writing this letter. Oh, don’t get me wrong: the incredible runway shows that display designers’ talents, inspiring everything we do at Vogue, are also superb, while the parties I attend, places I go and people I meet are equally very special. I appreciate every wonderful moment. But for me, the standout remains curating a beautiful magazine and the pleasure of publishing the work of our brilliant team and collaborators.
When I became editor, I felt I was the custodian of Vogue for a period during which I hoped to build the brand on all platforms, thereby creating a sustainable and exciting future for a magazine that had already celebrated its 50th year in Australia – no small feat in publishing. There has been much talk about the demise of print publishing since then, but for me it’s been a story of opportunities; opportunities that have been embraced wholeheartedly by my team. Our vibrant and exciting digital and social platforms allow us to speak to a broader audience than ever before, report on things we might otherwise have missed, and engage in a two-way conversation with you. Digital is the platform through which we have invited you to successful real-life events such as Vogue Codes and Vogue American Express Fashion’s Night Out, and the virtual ones such as Vogue’s Online Shopping Nights, too. I am proud to say you attend, partake in and enjoy them as much as we do.
As the digital age dawned (and I am showing my publishing age now), the general wisdom in print publishing was to become more like digital. People only wanted to read snippets, we thought, lots of bite-sized pieces of information, and so we filled the pages with more and more in a sometimes frenetic fashion, mimicking the way we were consuming content online. But that was wrong.
The gift of digital has, in fact, let us highlight what the print experience offers that digital cannot: pure ‘you’ time. Reading Vogue is a joy that gives us time away from the screen, time that is ours and ours alone, uninterrupted by work emails or alerts that our friends have just posted from their summer break in Europe while we are wrapped in a wintery blanket on the couch. If time is the greatest of luxuries, then sitting down with your new issue of Vogue is too: it’s time for you.
And it’s for you that we have curated this beautiful September issue, which has been redesigned, resized and reimagined. We have treated each page like a work of art, featuring original and inspiring pictures or collaged imagery cleverly created by our art department. We collaborated with renowned art photographer Jackie Nickerson, who travelled to Japan – one of the most inspiring and intriguing places in the world – with our fashion director Christine Centenera, to produce a body of work best appreciated together and as imagined by the photographer in print. In fact, the thirst for beautifully curated fashion exhibitions, such as the National