Vogue's September Issue Includes A Nod To Anna Wintour's First Cover

Forbes

a day ago

Emma Stone photographed by Jamie Hawkesworth for American Vogue. Vogue
With a spread that stars actress Emma Stone, who, fresh off her 2024 Academy Award win for Best Actress, has been kept busy working alongside 'Poor Things' director Yorgos Lanthimos on upcoming film projects, American Vogue's newest issue captures more than the star's image across its glossy pages and symbolically marks the end of Anna Wintour's 37-year run as the magazine's editor-in-chief.
In a visual representation of the pair's longtime partnership, Stone was dressed by Louis Vuitton's artistic director Nicolas Ghesquière who crafted a couture collection exclusively for the actress to wear when photographed for the publication's highly anticipated fall issue.
In the caption of a promotional video released by American Vogue to tease the spread, the magazine commented on the relationship between Ghesquière and Stone, as well as the inspiration behind the collection, saying, 'The project is a celebration of love and friendship, with Emma stepping into six distinct essence, each with their own unique personality.
'One sees her as the magnetic headmistress of a ballet academy, inspired by Louis Vuitton's legendary Épi leather. Another transforms her into the enigmatic hostess of an imaginary cabaret, a nod to her Broadway performance in 2014. A third channels pure innocence, recalling the earliest moments of her performance as Bella Baxter in Poor Things.'
Brining Ghesquière's designs to life, the images that eventually made up the magazine's main editorial spread were shot by British fashion and documentary photographer Jamie Hawkesworth and directed by fashion editor Grace Coddington in the south of France.
Michaela Bercu photographed by Peter Lindbergh for American Vogue in 1988. Vogue
While many of Hawkesworth's photographs fit neatly into the template of American Vogue's distinguishable editorial style—which typically combines moody colorways and lighting techniques with polished portrait imagery—the issue's hero image garnered particular attention for its striking resemblance to Wintour's famed 1988 cover—with a modern twist of course.
Photographed by Peter Lindbergh and featuring Israeli model Michaela Bercu styled in a bejeweled Christian Lacroix jacket and light-wash pair of low-rise Guess jeans, Wintour's late-eighties cover for American Vogue was a first for the publication in several respects.
Before Wintour, the magazine typically shot models from the shoulders up, their neat headshots captured within the walls of a studio and in front of solid-colored backdrops—almost never outside or on the street. Additionally, her juxtaposed styling of Bercu, which mixed luxury elements with everyday staples, was—especially at the time—completely novel. It was influential changes like these, alongside Wintour's insistence on featuring less models and more celebrity cover stars, that cemented the up-and-coming talent as the individual who would go on to reinvigorate the structure of American Vogue and oversee all content for the next three decades.
While not a direct copy, many details from Stone's cover image integrate subtle nods to Wintour's now iconized first cover image including the posing, composition, hairstyling and—most obviously—the styling. What gave it away for most fans of Wintour's historic run at the helm of the magazine was that alongside Stone's luxuriously crafted cropped capelet top, the actress donned a pair of low-rise blue jeans—the same unlikely pairing that, while intuitive to modern consumers, premiered on the cover of American Vogue as a boundary-pushing shift in fashion presentation.