THE VISIONARY
Bernie Leser, Vogue Australia’s inimitable founder, is remembered and revered by his son David Leser and former colleague Jonathan Newhouse.
Looking back at the life of Bernie Leser, Vogue Australia’s inimitable founder.
TO REFLECT ON Vogue Australia’s history is to remember Bernie Leser, the founding father of our magazine. Born in 1925, Leser fled Nazi Germany for New Zealand in 1939 and went on to study business at the University of Auckland. Two decades later, in 1959, Leser was tasked with the lofty challenge of launching Vogue Australia (and later Vogue Living), persuading mass audiences that high fashion had a place in our society.
Leser’s influence was felt beyond our shores, culminating in being named managing director of Condé Nast’s UK operations in 1976 and then president of the US arm of Condé Nast by legendary publishing magnate Si Newhouse Jr in 1987. During his career he also helped launch Condé Nast Traveller, Allure and German Vogue, the latter of which was highly personal given it was his country of birth.
Leser retired in Australia, and upon his passing in 2015, at the age of 90, was honoured at a memorial service in New York. Both Jonathan Newhouse (then CEO of Condé Nast International) and his son, author and journalist David Leser, delivered the following eulogies at that memorial, both of which reveal not only the impact he had on the Australian media landscape but also on others.