In 2020, Dame Judi Dench, already an Oscar winner, graced the cover of British Vogue in 2020 at the age of 85 to become the oldest person to appear on the magazine’s cover. One may wonder whether it enabled some readers of the magazine to feel more represented age-wise.

Did it then inspire the magazine to spotlight older stars subsequently? In an article in The Guardian, Gwendolyn Smith wrote that “[b]oth her [Demch’s] Vogue and social media stardom prove that vitality exists far beyond youth, and that it’s frankly ludicrous that society sidelines older women, given their style, wit and energy.”

There is little doubt that Vogue’s covers will remain the fashion bible’s most iconic feature. A debutante emerged from an ethereal (and, one imagines, fragrant) cloud of butterflies and roses in the inaugural issue of Vogue, published in December 1892.

Since then, both the world and society have evolved. Casting a ballot was not possible for the corseted 19th-century female readers of Vogue, for example. But, some passions, like fashion, and some fascinations never seem to fade. Let’s examine how the Vogue cover has changed over time.

The people who appear on Vogue’s covers have always been dignified, have a strong fan following, have a distinctive appearance, are role models, and most importantly, have a deep regard for and understanding of the brand. Yet in July 1932, British Vogue’s first photo cover, with a swimmer cradling a beach ball, propelled it to the level of a cover that we now recognize as the best.

Unsurprisingly, fashion magazines, like the rest of society, aren’t exactly known for celebrating getting older. Has the age-phobic fashion world finally realized that people don’t morph into unsightly crone-like figures as they get older? Maybe.

Maybe not. Still, in an unprecedented occurrence, Apo Whang-Od, also known as Maria Oggay, a 106-year-old native tattoo artist from Buscalan, a remote mountain village in the Kalinga province of the northern Philippines, graced the cover of the April issue of Vogue Philippines, surpassing Dench’s record and making her the oldest model on the front page of the magazine.

“Heralded as the last mambabatok of her generation, she [WhangOd] has imprinted the symbols of the Kalinga tribe – signifying strength, bravery, and beauty – on the skin of thousands of people who have made the pilgrimage to Buscalan,” Vogue Philippines wrote on Instagram. “We felt she represented our ideals of what is beautiful about our Filipino culture,” said its editorin-chief, Bea Valdes. And after the Vogue cover was out, the tattoo artist’s Instagram account shared the image with the caption: “Beauty embracing culture. Beauty transcending age. Beauty is not modern, it is timeless.”

Under Diana Vreeland, who served as editor-in-chief from 1963 until 1972, Vogue undoubtedly underwent a remarkable transformation. Although still concentrating on the primary goals of a global fashion magazine, Vreeland developed innovative and politically significant covers.

“Too much good taste can be very boring. Independent style, on the other hand, can be very inspiring,” Vreeland is known to have said. Let’s see how true beauty transcends age, race, and gender. WhangOd is undoubtedly one of the few indigenous people to grace the cover of Vogue.

Only 23.6 per cent of Vogue magazine covers included non-white subjects between 2012 and 2016, but between 2016 and 2018, that percentage rose to 43.5. It’s interesting to note that Vogue has recently made headlines on a worldwide scale for breaching the barrier.

Halima Aden, a model who was born in a Kenyan refugee camp, is accompanied by eight other girls of various races and ethnicities who represent “new frontiers” in fashion on the May 2018 cover of British Vogue. The same year, the “trailblazing women” issue of Vogue Arabia, which featured a Saudi princess on the cover, caused controversy in Saudi Arabia. Lizzo, a “musical sage,” was chosen as the Vogue Magazine cover girl in 2020. The first “big black woman” on a Vogue cover, she referred to herself.

Ashley Graham, a model, however, might be the first plus-size model to ever be featured on the Vogue cover. She was one of seven models in the picture in 2017. In 2021, controversy broke out when US Vogue was accused of “whitewashing” photographs of Vice President Kamala Harris on its cover. Also, another cover in the same year was criticized for the bad lighting of gymnast Simone Biles’ skin tone.

Dutch model Jill Kortleve was the first plus-size model to appear on the cover of Vogue Russia in 2021, and the publication received both praise and criticism for the decision. British Vogue faced criticism in 2022 for its cover image, which celebrated the emergence of African models and their “redrawing the map” by featuring nine black women.

The cover has drawn criticism for “fetishizing” black women and viewing them via the “white gaze,” according to some. But is Vogue’s endeavour to evolve the idea of beauty merely an attempt to create a trend, or is it also doing so in order to further its own commercial interests? In a 2014 paper titled “Vogue as an Example of Effective Fashion Magazine Covers,” Kiefer Hackney of the California Polytechnic State University wrote that while, in the beginning, the focus of Vogue was on the traditions of high society and fashion was only mentioned when giving advice on what was appropriate to wear to an occasion, now “with an audience of 12.5 million international readers and 31.1 million international monthly unique users, Vogue must be able to appeal to a vast majority of people and backgrounds.”

Thus, when, after casting Jill Kortleve on the cover in 2021, Ksenia Solovyeva, editor-in-chief of Vogue Russia, stated in her letter from the editor that “[p]lus-size models are a global trend, and Jill’s story looks positive from all angles,” it made sense. Beauty and Vogue both are getting redefined in the process, possibly.

(The writer is Professor of Statistics, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata.)