“[Israeli model] Michaela [Bercu] was wearing an haute couture Christian Lacroix jacket with a beaded cross … and stonewashed Guess jeans. The jacket was actually part of a suit, but the skirt didn’t fit Michaela; she had been on vacation back home in Israel and had gained a little weight. Not that that mattered. In fact, it only served to reinforce the idea to take couture’s haughty grandeur and playfully throw it headlong into real life and see what happened … Afterwards, in the way that these things can happen, people applied all sorts of interpretations: It was about mixing high and low, Michaela was pregnant, it was a religious statement. But none of these things was true. I had just looked at that picture and sensed the winds of change. And you can’t ask for more from a cover image than that.”
— Anna Wintour took to Vogue‘s Internet presence on the eve of the magazine’s 120th anniversary to reminisce on her beginnings as editor, and also to divulge a little secret. Her first cover, November 1988, beckoned a new frontier: it broke the canon of past versions (a model wearing jeans on the cover of the most grandiose magazine was a novel concept!) and reinforced that Wintour wasn’t one to hesitate in revolutionizing the standard formula. I’m actually pleasantly surprised by Anna’s positive attitude toward wreaking havoc in the halls of couture and embracing a model that didn’t fit in a sample size (well, at that very moment, for what it’s worth). Israeli food is delicious. [Vogue]
