Can Vogue’s glamorous ‘Conde Nasty’ crowd ever have so much fun again?
‘Posh totty’ staff covered in olive oil sunbathing on the roof. Job hopefuls sending topless photos. Diana asking some VERY personal questions at lunch. Amid rumours they’re about to quit HQ of 60 years...
people. You’d see young Japanese girls outside taking selfies, which was sweet.’
Inside, ghosts of the past continue to stalk the hallways. In his memoir, The Glossy Years, Coleridge told how Princess Diana ‘found it very embarrassing to go to shops in Sloane Street or in Bond Street and try on clothes by a designer and then buy nothing’, so she struck an arrangement with Vogue.
He added: ‘If she wanted to try a new designer, the magazine would call in quite a lot of clothes from that designer for her to try on.
‘And then the fashion editors would look at them with her and they would say, “You know we think you look great in this one, this one I don’t think works quite so well, this one is marvellous.”’
Only after Diana had made her selections – one of which was cattily described by a Conde Nasty as making her look like an ‘Aeroflot air stewardess’ – would her staff contact the designers.
The Princess even attended boardroom lunches. One was held the day after a picture of her sunbathing topless appeared on the front page of a red-top tabloid.
Coleridge recalled: ‘The Princess looked fabulous. She was very tactile. It was unexpected. Diana touched your elbow, your arm, covered your hand with hers. It was alluring. And she was disarmingly confiding, speaking without filter.
‘She said to me, “Can I ask you something? Please be truthful. Did you see the photograph of me in the Daily Mirror? The topless one?
‘“William rang me from Eton. Poor boy. He was upset. He said some of the other boys were teasing him, saying my t**s are too small.” She held on to my elbow, adding, “Please be frank, I want to know your real view. Are my breasts too small, do you think?” ’
Coleridge said he went ‘as red as a guardsman’s tunic’ and stuttered: ‘Er, Your Royal Highness, in as much as I can see under your suit, they seem, um, perfect to me. I wouldn’t worry.’
Diana responded: ‘Thank you, Nicholas. I knew you’d tell me the truth. Thank you, I feel better now.’
When Diana left Vogue House, there were four photographers waiting outside. Coleridge rang a friend to try to discover who had tipped off the paparazzi. He learnt that the Princess had told them herself, phoning them from her car on the way to lunch.
A less sympatico Royal visitor was Prince Andrew who, during one lunch, bored fellow guests with a 30-minute description of reversing a ship into a port.
Photographer David Bailey recalls the sixth-floor photo studio where he first met model Jean Shrimpton. His captivating pictures of her launched both their careers. He said: ‘I fell in love with Jean from the moment I met her. The attraction was mutual, although I was an odd choice for her. She was posh and socialised with public schoolboys who were all known by their surnames. I was a working-class boy from the East End.
‘The first thing I noticed was her eyes. She had great legs as well.
Conde Nast chief executive Roger Lynch said: ‘My hope is we start using both spaces interchangeably and our teams begin to work more closely together.’ If the days of Vogue House are numbered, it proves the wisdom of one of Anna Wintour’s memorable sayings: ‘Fashion’s not about looking back. It’s always about looking forward.’
Andrew bored guests with a long description of reversing a ship into port