You don’t dress yourself. Vogue does.

Have you ever wondered who decides that beige is back? Who magically turns a plastic bag into a “statement” accessory priced at €12,000? Or who declares that wearing rhinestone Crocs is suddenly a “political statement”… even though, let’s be honest, it’s just plain ugly?

Spoiler Alert: the answer starts with a “V,” ends with an “E”… and in between, there’s a hundred-plus-year-old media empire. oday, we’re talking about VOGUE. Not the dance. Not the Madonna track. We’re talking about the magazine. The bible of fashion, the Holy Spirit of luxury, the Air Traffic Control of good taste… or, from another angle, a dinosaur in stilettos that refuses to die.

Because Vogue isn’t just something you flip through at the dermatologist’s waiting room. It’s a cultural institution, a dream machine—and yes, a machine of diktats—that has ruled over style, careers, and mindsets. And if you think it has nothing to do with you, remember that even your Insta feed trends might have been dictated, directly or indirectly, by someone who approved a black-and-white editorial from a climate-controlled office at Condé Nast.

So today, we’re picking up the scalpel. We’re dissecting the Vogue empire:

• From its birth in the hushed salons of New York to its mythic editorial status,

• From Anna Wintour’s highly regimented reign to its (sometimes desperate) attempts to stay cool,

• All the way to its starring role in that fashion world extravaganza that’s a little bit Fashion Week, a hint of the Oscars, and a dash of Hunger Games: the Met Gala.

In short? If you’ve ever wanted to know how we went from the nobility of the corset to the sponsored vulgarity of a Balenciaga latex thong, this episode is for you. Welcome to Cappuccino & Croissant, your shot of pop-culture caffeine—no sugar, but with a dash of bad faith.

🎙️ The genesis of an empire

Vogue was born in December 1892 in New York. Not in some glamorous editorial office or artsy photo studio—nope. It emerged in an America that was still literally corseted and completely dominated by the norms of white high society. Back then, Vogue was anything but revolutionary. It was a weekly social gazette created by Arthur Baldwin Turnure, an aristocrat frustrated by the lack of content about balls, horses, jewels, and polite gossip from New York’s elite circles. His target audience? Women of the upper crust who could spell “etiquette” in three dead languages and fought to get a mention about their latest dinner among barons.

But in 1909, history took a turn. Condé Nast bought the magazine. And that changed everything. Because Nast didn’t just want a social diary: he wanted an influential media outlet, capable of shaping the opinions of the wealthy… and those who aspired to be. He restructured the paper, lightened the layout, put the spotlight on visuals, and introduced a more refined, more international, more… French sense of luxury. Thus began Vogue’s near-symbiotic relationship with Parisian haute couture.

By the 1910s, Condé Nast understood something no other publisher had dared grasp: fashion is a form of cultural power. He launched Vogue UK in 1916—an historic move, because it was the first American fashion magazine to be exported during World War I, when postal routes were cut off. The British edition quickly distinguished itself with a more journalistic, less society-gossip approach and a distinctly Victorian elegance.

In the 1920s, the helm passed to Edna Woolman Chase, the first major female figure at Vogue. She led the editorial team with an iron hand, class, and a near-surgical eye for detail. Under her leadership, Vogue became an editorial powerhouse—and a visual one too: she hired illustrators, then photographers, to make each issue a work of art. In 1932, Vogue US published its first color photographic cover, shot by Edward Steichen. Yet again, they were way ahead of everyone else.

Then came the 1930s and 1940s. The world was in crisis, but Vogue held its ground. More than that: Vogue UK joined the war effort. Under Audrey Withers’s leadership, the magazine documented the conflict without abandoning its aesthetic upper hand. Photographer Lee Miller—once a muse, then turned war correspondent—covered the front lines with her Leica while wearing a tailored suit. She was one of the first women to photograph concentration camps after their liberation. This wasn’t just about fashion; it was about memory.

In the 1950s, Vogue returned to the golden age of Hollywood glamour. The photos were sumptuous, the models statuesque, the poses sculptural. It was the era of Richard Avedon, Irving Penn, and Cecil Beaton. The Vogue style portrayed women who were elegant, mysterious, always unattainable. These weren’t “women like us,” but women we could never be—and that, precisely, was the dream.

But the real editorial revolution arrived in the 1960s with Diana Vreeland, the most flamboyant editor-in-chief ever. She transformed Vogue into an ideas laboratory. She introduced editorials where fashion coexisted with art, politics, literature, and pop culture. Vreeland created the very concept of fashion-as-storytelling. The photos morphed into surreal tableaux. She had Veruschka posing in the desert, Twiggy on psychedelic backdrops, Mick Jagger shirtless across a full page. Under her guidance, fashion became a manifesto.

Yet as the 1970s and 1980s rolled around, the obsession with luxury reasserted itself. Vogue began shedding its wild side, centering again on the tried-and-true: Dior, Chanel, Valentino, Yves Saint Laurent. What was once a laboratory became a temple. But a temple without a high priestess is pointless. Enter Anna.

Before we get into her reign, you need to understand one thing: Vogue was never just a magazine. It was a world-ordering machine, a matrix of desire, a school for the gaze. And from its earliest decades, it had already laid down the paradox that makes it so fascinating: making you think it’s all about style, when it’s really about power.

🎙️ Anna Wintour: from the bob to the boss

“The devil doesn’t just wear Prada. She also signs the checks.”

In 1988, the fashion world was living in post-Vreeland mode. Vogue was still standing, but exhausted. Cover after cover looked like bland store windows, the creative direction lacked boldness, and younger generations barely cared. That’s when Anna Wintour walked in. Dark bob, sunglasses permanently glued to her face, a British accent sharp as a razor. She wasn’t there to please. She was there to impose. And she would do it like no one else in fashion publishing history.

Right from her first cover in November 1988, she made a statement. Romanian model Michaela Bercu appeared in a stonewashed Guess jean and a jewel-encrusted Lacroix top, photographed outdoors in natural light. The choice caused an internal uproar. People whispered that it was a printing error. It wasn’t. It was a declaration of war. The message was clear: haute couture was no longer confined to gilded salons—it was hitting the streets.

Wintour understood something fundamental that her predecessors had missed: luxury had to tell a different story. It couldn’t stay frozen. It had to reflect the world without diving into chaos. Dreamlike, sure—but a dream that can wear jeans.

From that point on, everything changed. The magazine became a hyper-efficient editorial machine, a central actor in the fashion economy that influenced everything: runway casting, the rise of certain designers, which celebrities became icons. Vogue ceased to be a mere magazine; it became a symbolic marketplace where the public images of the powerful were negotiated.

Anna Wintour wasn’t just an editor-in-chief. She gradually became a pillar of the establishment, an unofficial ambassador for American fashion, and eventually a queen within Condé Nast—the group that owns Vogue, Vanity Fair, GQ, The New Yorker, Glamour, and more.

By the late ’90s, she was already a legend. She propelled the careers of John Galliano, Tom Ford, Alexander McQueen, Marc Jacobs, supporting them financially through the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund, a program she co-founded to help young designers survive the capitalist jungle of fashion. She also featured actresses on the covers—something once considered heresy—like Nicole Kidman, Renée Zellweger, Angelina Jolie, or TV’s rising stars like Blake Lively. Wintour quickly realized that celebrities had at least as much value as models—maybe more—as long as they played the game.

In parallel, she redefined the very structure of the magazine. Everything went through her: editorials, shoots, ad contracts, covers, partnerships. She had a reputation for absolute control—sometimes toxic, often intimidating. There’s an internal legend that she would personally dictate the exact number of visible inches of leg in a photo.

That control extended well beyond editorial content, influencing ad campaign casting, negotiations with brand art directors, creative direction in major fashion houses. In 2013, she was named Condé Nast’s Artistic Director. In 2020, she became Chief Content Officer worldwide, overseeing all global editions of Vogue—25 of them. This position granted her near-monarchical power over how fashion is portrayed on a planetary scale.

But that reign came with shadows. As brilliant as her eye might be, she faced serious accusations over lack of diversity. For decades, covers were mostly white, slim, and heteronormative. Not until the 2010s did we see a tangible shift. In 2018, Beyoncé demanded to choose her own photographer for her cover, selecting Tyler Mitchell, who became the first Black photographer to shoot a Vogue US cover in its 126-year history. In 2020, in the wake of post-George Floyd protests and the BLM movement, multiple former employees spoke out about a climate of exclusion at Condé Nast. Some pointed the finger directly at Wintour, accusing her of maintaining an elitist, silently racist, opaque corporate culture. She responded with an internal memo, admitted mistakes, and promised a new era of inclusivity.

Since then, figures like Edward Enninful (Editor-in-Chief of Vogue UK) or Chioma Nnadi (editor of Vogue.com and now heading Vogue UK) represent a more inclusive, progressive counterweight—but always under Wintour’s overshadowing influence. Her reign also took on new dimensions: Wintour is now the public face of the Met Gala, which she’s helmed since 1995. It has become a global spectacle, a ceremony of visual consecration, and a prime display of fashion’s soft power. Every outfit on those Met steps is indirectly approved—or not—by her.

What most people don’t see is the behind-the-scenes diplomacy: negotiating between brands, houses, museums, celebrities, and editors. She orchestrates fashion like a silent conductor, raising a baton without ever raising her voice.

So why is she still here in 2025? Maybe because no one else can play the part. Or maybe because Anna Wintour embodies what Vogue can’t give up: narrative control.One last note: despite her frosty demeanor, her velvety silence, and that well-dressed reptilian aura, she’s never pretended to be cool. And that might be her real strength. She never chases trends—she lets them come to her and decides if they’re worthy of becoming history.

🎙️ Fall and rebirth: Vogue in the digital age

“Fashion moves too fast for print. And yet Vogue is still standing.”

For a century, Vogue was fashion’s oracle, the Holy Grail of style, the ultimate ticket to visual elite status. But every digital storm eventually soaks even the best-armored ship. In the early 2010s, as social networks exploded, blogs bloomed, and YouTube toppled TV among under-30s, Vogue started to wobble. Slowly, but surely.

The print magazine’s business model began to collapse. The numbers were brutal: in the U.S., Vogue’s subscription base fell from 1.3 million in 2006 to a nosedive in sales a decade later. Younger generations don’t buy print magazines anymore—they scroll, like, and comment. Visual content once created to be quietly admired must now be devoured, processed, and spat out in under seven seconds.

And Vogue, long accustomed to dictating fashion from its velvet throne, suddenly had to adapt to a horizontal, participatory, unpredictable world. A world where a 19-year-old TikToker could define the season’s trends dancing in their kitchen. A world where runway reviews pop up on Substack, and fashion criticism becomes an ultra-documented Twitter thread.

Vogue’s response? A gradual mutation, multiplying platforms, content styles, and front faces.

1. Digital Hub:Vogue.com became a major online destination, updated around the clock. You’ll find runway reviews, designer profiles, shopping picks (sometimes sponsored), lifestyle articles, beauty tips, pop-culture insights. The site caters to two gods: editorial prestige and SEO, both equally worshipped.

2. Vogue Runway:Launched in 2015, it’s a platform archiving all the major Fashion Week shows. It’s now an indispensable tool for professionals and fans alike. Free, sleek, accessible, with thousands of runway photos meticulously categorized by season, designer, and theme—a Wikipedia of the runway, luxe edition.

3. Social Media Strategy:

   • On Instagram, each international edition crafts its own editorial line: behind-the-scenes content, shooting outtakes, mini-interviews.

   • On YouTube, Vogue US introduced now-iconic formats: 73 Questions, Beauty Secrets, Life in Looks. These polished capsules straddle the line between intimacy and PR spin.

   • On TikTok, the tone aims to be more spontaneous, but Vogue still struggles to find a long-term footing. The space is dominated by independent creators, often far more credible with Gen Z.

But changing formats isn’t enough. They had to rethink substance.For decades, Vogue epitomized an exclusive, white, elitist world that often veered into misogyny under the guise of elegance. Confronted with late-2010s cultural upheavals—#MeToo, Black Lives Matter, body positivity, criticism of capitalist beauty standards—the brand had no choice: evolve, or vanish.

So Vogue launched multiple initiatives:

• In 2018, Beyoncé insisted on working with Tyler Mitchell, the first Black photographer to shoot a Vogue US cover.

• In 2020, after the George Floyd protests in the U.S., Anna Wintour publicly acknowledged Vogue’s historical failings on diversity.

• Cover stars now include Lizzo, Paloma Elsesser, Zendaya, Simone Biles, Malala, Jennie (of BLACKPINK).

• Vogue Arabia, Vogue India, Vogue Korea, Vogue Mexico are growing in influence, each with a more radical visual identity, deeply rooted locally, often more innovative than the US version.

Yet questions remain: is it genuine or opportunistic? Inclusive or strategic?

Many suspect “woke-washing”: diverse faces, but little structural change inside. In 2020, multiple former Condé Nast employees described a rigid, discriminatory corporate culture, still dominated by a white elite. Wintour promised to revamp the structure. She appointed Edward Enninful at Vogue UK, then Chioma Nnadi for Vogue.com and now Vogue UK—but centralization persists: each international edition must clear its content with the US HQ. A watched-over diversity?

Meanwhile, competition is shape-shifting:

• Publications like Dazed, i-D, or The Gentlewoman lure a young, queer, anti-establishment audience.

• Critical voices flourish on Substack—Rachel Tashjian, Vanessa Friedman, etc.

• TikTokers and YouTubers like Mina Le, HauteLeMode, or FashionRoadman deliver more incisive fashion analysis than most Vogue US pages in the last decade.

Cold truth? Vogue has lost the monopoly on how we see fashion. But it gained something else: it transcended its status as a magazine to become a meta-brand—a sort of cultural label, sometimes hollow, yet still coveted. In 2025, Vogue doesn’t sell paper; it sells a logo, an aura, a ticket to the visual storytelling of power. And while Vogue doesn’t always create the trend anymore, it blesses it. It no longer launches; it officializes.

So no, Vogue isn’t the sole oracle these days. But in a world that’s fragmenting, there’s still a need for someone to stamp style diplomas. And that role—despite mistakes, delays, and controversies—still belongs to Vogue.

🎙️ The Met Gala: the church of looks, the faithful of likes, and the Anna Wintour dogma

“Yes, it’s a charity event—but with more sequins than the Eurovision finale and more dress codes than the Vatican.”

We couldn’t talk about Vogue without discussing the moment when the entire fashion universe kneels before its holy scriptures: the Met Gala.

Because seriously, what is the Met Gala? A red carpet? A prom? A personality test with rhinestones? Technically, it’s a charity gala raising funds for the Costume Institute at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. But socially? It’s the world’s most exclusive dinner, where clothes aren’t just worn—they’re meant to mean something. And entry isn’t bought with a credit card… it’s granted by papal approval from Anna Wintour.

Since 1995, she’s been the grand orchestrator. Every year, every guest, and every centimeter of fabric paraded on the Met steps is filtered, selected, and scripted. You don’t just walk those stairs—you earn them.

Naturally, Vogue is everywhere: in the planning, the coverage, the spin. The Met Gala is Vogue’s power, made manifest in the real world. The event is where the magazine doesn’t just comment on fashion—it becomes fashion.

Officially, a ticket goes for around $50,000. But that figure is meaningless if Anna Wintour’s gatekeeping says you’re out—too vulgar, too unstable, or just not on brand. Conversely, a single appearance at the Met can make or break a career.

Tables are purchased by brands who seat their muses there. Chanel foots the bill, their muse climbs the steps. Louis Vuitton books a table, and their ambassadors shine. It’s also the world’s priciest luxury showroom, but presented as an artistic event. In 2023, the gala raised over $22 million. On the surface, that’s noble. Underneath, it’s one of the most lucrative media deals in existence.

Every year has a theme, linked to the Costume Institute’s annual exhibit. Over time, these themes became fashion’s Olympic challenges:

• Heavenly Bodies (2018): Catholic iconography meets Dolce & Gabbana.

• Camp (2019): An homage to extravagance, where some stars nailed the assignment and others showed they had no idea what camp even meant.

• China: Through the Looking Glass (2015): Stunning but teetering on the edge of Orientalism.

• Karl Lagerfeld (2023): Icy elegance, overshadowed by controversies around a creator both revered and critiqued.

The most fascinating part is how these themes test celebrities:

• A good look isn’t just “beautiful.” It has to match the theme, carry a message, align with the sponsoring fashion house, and create a memorable buzz.

• In that impossible equation, some (Rihanna, Zendaya, Billie Eilish) score big, while others drown in off-theme tulle.

Now that the Met Gala is a viral phenomenon, every outfit is designed to be photographed, retweeted, memed, dissected. The next day, social media sits in judgment:

• Who nailed it?

• Who tried?

• Who should have stayed home or hired a decent stylist?

Thus, the Met Gala plays a new role: it turns fashion into a collective debate.Your outfit becomes a statement, your dress an opinion. And Vogue ensures the narrative stays on the right track.

• Accusations of greenwashing, courtesy of millions of Swarovski crystals.

• Accusations of being out of touch, especially when it’s held during an economic or health crisis.

• Accusations of political co-opting—like when AOC showed up wearing a “Tax the Rich” dress… at the Met Gala.

• And, above all, charges of strategic superficiality: talk of “diversity,” but the same faces, the same brands, the same power dynamics every year.

The Met Gala is a mirror—but like any mirror, it only reflects what you want to see. Vogue isn’t merely a media partner; it’s the official narrator:

• Vogue’s editors write the Instagram captions.

• Vogue YouTube produces the “Get Ready With Me” videos.

• Vogue.com ranks the looks and decides what’s brilliant or cringe.

• Vogue cameras film Billie Eilish in her hotel room or Rihanna in her elevator.

The Met Gala is annual proof that Vogue can still enforce a collective moment—even in an era of scattershot attention. Even if nobody’s reading the magazine, everyone’s watching what Vogue wants us to see.

Focus: Met Gala 2025

Every year, the Met Gala toys with the boundaries of taste, but in 2025, the game turned sharply political. The theme? “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style.” A polished title for an evening that was anything but superficial. Beneath the elegant surface lay a powerful narrative: honoring Black dandyism not as a fleeting fashion trend, but as an act of resistance, identity assertion, and cultural reinvention. And if that sounds too academic, let’s put it plainly — this wasn’t just about well-cut suits. It was a love letter — and a battle cry — to Black culture.

The official dress code, “Tailored for You,” was an open invitation to personal interpretation but also a call for collective recognition. And this year, it wasn’t Anna Wintour who stole the spotlight, but the lineup of co-chairs who said it all: Pharrell Williams, Lewis Hamilton, Colman Domingo, A$AP Rocky. Not there for decoration, but to embody the theme. Pharrell, in particular — the undisputed master of blending luxury with urban culture — set a clear tone: this Met Gala wasn’t about validating a style; it was about shining a light on centuries of Black creativity that museums and magazines have historically sidelined.

The accompanying exhibit at the Met Museum, curated by Monica L. Miller (author of Slaves to Fashion) and Andrew Bolton, broke the theme down into twelve sections, each as elegant as it was politically charged: “Ownership,” “Freedom,” “Cool,” and more. Far from just a display of beautiful garments, this was a textile manifesto, punctuated by pieces from contemporary creators like Torkwase Dyson and Tyler Mitchell.

Of course, no Met Gala is complete without a bit of drama. Ashley Graham narrowly escaped a wardrobe oil disaster by whipping out a diamond brooch to cover the damage — a fashion emergency turned PR masterstroke. But the real controversy? Cartier’s decision to deny Diljit Dosanjh the right to wear the historic Patiala necklace. The move ignited conversations about cultural heritage and symbolic exclusion that hung heavier than any gown.

And then there was Andra Day. Her performance of “Rise Up” froze the room in a moment of suspended breath, reminding everyone that behind every perfectly executed stitch, there’s pain, history, and a fight.

The 2025 Met Gala wasn’t just another glittering event — it was a statement. A reminder that celebrating Black beauty doesn’t mean costuming it for one night, but restoring the space it should never have been forced to vacate.

🎙️ Conclusion – “A Legend by the Mirror”

So there you have it. Vogue didn’t just report on fashion—it created it, shaped it, sometimes locked it down. For over a century, it controlled the pen, the camera, the rolodex, and the checkbook. It decided who had taste, who was too soon, who was too late. And most importantly: who deserved to be seen.

It weathered wars, TV, Tumblr, TikTok. It absorbed criticisms, recycled its mistakes as editorials, turned its missteps into storytelling. Vogue is elegance that always manages to justify itself. An icon that never blinks, even when faced with the wildest storms of trending chaos.

But behind the silk and flashes, the seams sometimes strain. The urge to be modern without giving up its throne. The effort to be inclusive… without fully surrendering the private club. And that lingering question like a perfume at the end of the gala: is Vogue still ahead of its time… or just very well covered in makeup?

Maybe that’s the strange beauty of this institution. It doesn’t follow fashion; it tells us what it wishes fashion could be. Not who we are, but what we hope to project—even when we’re scrolling at midnight in a hoodie, slurping instant noodles.

Yes, Vogue is a relic. But it’s a relic that can still tweak its silhouette to remain in the frame. And as long as there’s a dress to sew, an ego to stroke, or a name to crown, Vogue will stick around.

 Just blurry enough to be mythical. Just sharp enough to stay bankable.

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🎙️ Thank you for listening to Cappuccino & Croissant, the only podcast that dissects pop culture like a haute couture runway: with perspective, irony, and the occasional temptation to hem the edges. See you next week, and until then… stay bold, stay curious, and remember: even in the blur, elegance can still make people grind their teeth. Later!