Books to Read: The Man Who Was VOGUE by Caroline Seebohm

A heart-warming, addictive and yet informative biography by Caroline Seebohm on Condé Nast is a book I am now sad to have finished. First published in 1982, you would be under the rather wrong impression that the book would offer an outdated view on the fashion industry and a rather old-fashioned form of writing. However, this intriguing book, written by a brilliant woman who had contributed in writing for Condé Nast Publications, is a difficult one to put down.

Covering Nast's life from before birth, with contextual information on his family, through his absolutely mind-blowing life with Vogue, Vanity Fair and other publications, to after his death 1942, Seebohm captures this captivating man in the brilliant of lights. Seebohn writes of Nast in the Prelude:

"At an exhilarating moment in history, Nast invented the superfluous in America. He showed Americans how to spend their money on the embellishment of life, and carried his standards of taste to England and France in a triumphant reversal of form. He cultivated a social world that may have been glossy and frivolous at heart, but whose members were encouraged to appreciate some of the most dazzling forms of aesthetic excellent, and to improve their own lives, through the pages of his magazines."

A man rarely spoken about now amongst the youth of today, unless it is to utter the name of his publishing company, has now won my heart."He had no hubris, no dishonest tricks, no vanity, and there was nothing mean, cruel, violent, vicious or bitchy about him" a quote from Helen Lawrenson says of Condé Nast. We live his life with him in this book and you feel the ecstasy of the first launch of Vogue and the success that comes with it, to the pain of the Depression of the 1930s, when Nast lost almost everything, landing in millians of dollars of debt. We learn the names that pioneered the essence of Vogue such as Edna Woolman Chase, Carmel Snow (who later went to Harper's Bazaar) and Mehemed Fehmy Agha. In addition, we see the rise of Cecil Beaton's long photographic career and relationship with Vogue. 

Possibly my favourite quote from the whole book is one of Condé Nast's about himself:

"Here I was, just a boy from St. Louis, and Edna Chase a Quaker from New Jersey. Between us, we set the standards of time. We showed America the meaning of style."

This book is absolutely jam-packed with amazing information, pictures and stories, vital to know for any girl or boy aspiring to achieve a career in fashion. If you don't read it now that you know, you are a fool. 

I'm going to leave you with the last four words of the book:

"Condé Nast's spirit lives."

Ruby