In dark times, we tend to find comfort in looking to the past. Revisiting the fairytales that sparked our imagination and filled us with joy as children is one place to start. What if you could relive those stories through a modern lens, one that features couture gowns and familiar faces?
Enter Vogue: Fantasy and Fashion, edited by Vogue’s archivist Laird Borrelli-Persson. The tome celebrates the magazine’s many reinterpretations of fantastical tales, from Alice in Wonderland to Snow White. Turn a page, and you’ll find yourself on a yellow brick road paved with Dior by John Galliano gowns and Marc Jacobs mini-dresses (“The Wizard of Oz,” December 2005, by Annie Leibovitz). Flip through again, and you’ll be guided through an enchanted forest by pianist Eddy Duchin, actor Frank Fray, and baseball player Hank Greenberg as a few of the seven dwarfs (“Fables Retold: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” December 15, 1946, by Irving Penn). Other fables get the Steven Meisel or Steven Klein treatment, and many of them have the recognizable stamp of Grace Coddington. Who else could create such covetable wardrobes for our modern-day heroines?
There’s a Surrealist sensibility to many of these spreads, and Borrelli-Persson explains that the movement flourished between the two World Wars. “In order to become better or move forward, we need to be able to dream or imagine something better,” she explains. No wonder she feels it’s newly relevant today.
In the face of a global pandemic, following the yellow brick road to a magical place—if just for a moment—certainly resonates. If only we could slip on ruby slippers to help us through these uncertain times. For now, we’ll find beauty and escape in the pages of Vogue: Fantasy and Fashion. As Borrelli-Persson put it: “We create fantasies when we need them the most.”
Below, a few of her favorite images from the book.
Vogue: Fantasy and Fashion is available wherever books are sold and can be ordered directly from Abrams.