After completing two months in beginner screwmeneutics and digital humanities research, I felt like the Vogue files was a blank canvas for exploration, especially without an introduction to the subject matter. Here’s what I found.
My search started with the statistics page, looking at the default setting of circulation. I noticed four periods of general increase, some obviously being greater than others. There’s a slight period in the 1920’s, another at the tail end of the depression, a third and drastic spike during WWII, and a rather steep increase in a roughly 15 year period beginning in 1970.
Why? Well, probably several reasons, but my initial thought was feminist movements. I mean feminist both in its most rash sense and in its most subdued sense, simply the empowerment of women. For example, compare the attitudes towards women in WWII with those in the 70s. Women needed to work more during WWII than any other period in America. The power came from necessity, fulfilling the absence of men. The 70s, on the other hand, was less of a responsive feminism and more of an activist period. I say post Woodstock to mark a significant turn in sexuality and expression in the United States.
Of course, just looking at the circulation isn’t enough. The next tool I used was the n-gram search. The first real hit I landed on was “women”. Women is used quite frequently as you can imagine but takes a huge surge in the same period in the 70s. Not surprisingly, it follows a similar trend for the 20s, late depression, although the pattern fell through during the war.
At this point, I read up a little more about the history of Vogue. Of course, I used the omnipotent source of wisdom, Wikipedia, from which I quote.
“In 1973, Vogue became a monthly publication. Under editor-in-chief Grace Mirabella, the magazine underwent extensive editorial and stylistic changes to respond to changes in the lifestyles of its target audience. Mirabella states that she was chosen to change Vogue because ‘women weren’t interested in reading about or buying clothes that served no purpose in their changing lives.’ She was selected to make the magazine appeal to the free, working, “liberated” woman of the seventies. She changed the magazine by adding text with interviews, arts coverage, and serious health pieces. When that type of stylistic change fell out of favor in the 1980s, Mirabella was brutally fired. Her take on it: ‘For a magazine devoted to style, this was not a very stylish way of telling me.’ ” – Vogue (magazine) Entry on Wikipedia
This quote supported my hunch about a more feminist approach in the 70s. That led to a few more searches on the n-gram tool. I searched for “girl” to see if there was any change in the target audience, as well as the words “free” and “choose”, both representative of the liberation Mirabella seemed to aim for. The results didn’t disappoint. Although minimal compared to the jump in frequency for “women,” the words followed a similar trend. “Girl” took a significant dip at the same time as women took its leap. “Free” followed most closely with the use of “women”. Choose had a less noticeable increase, but still doubled in frequency from 1968 to 1984.
The final tool worth pointing to is the Vogue Covers in Colormetric Space view. Yale already points out the trend I was looking at. In the 70 and early 80s, the saturation of the covers increased in a similar fashion. Yale credits this to more close up shots. I feel close up shots would also be the product of a more vocal and actively feminist approach.
I’m no expert on feminism, in fact, I’m probably a novice. Nevertheless, Vogue seems to mirror trends of female empowerment through the last century. It speaks to Vogue’s status not only as a beauty and fashion magazine, but a magazine run for women, by women. Though mainstream media, Vogue is more nuanced than my initial expectations for the genre.
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