Liz Truss, tipped to be the next leader of the Conservative Party, would like to get into Vogue. We know this because he asked Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon how to do it at the Cop26 climate conference last November. Sturgeon said Truss “looked a bit like he’d been swallowed by a wasp” when he told her he’d done his pages twice.
“That’s going to feel great, but I don’t want to… I had just been interviewed by Vogue, like you… that’s the most important thing he wanted to talk to me about: I wanted to know. how could he enter it VogueSturgeon told a fringe event in Edinburgh last week.
The discussion may have been relatively neutral at the time, but its public airing confirmed the strained relationship between the two: one already politically powerful and the other about to become so. Earlier in the week, Truss had labeled the SNP leader an “attention seeker” and told an Exeter hustings that “the best thing to do with Nicola Sturgeon is to ignore her”.
But it begs the question: Why is the acceptance or non-acceptance of a 130-year-old journal important to politicians? And what is it about Vogue’s image enhancement that sets political figures on both sides of the Atlantic in motion?
In purely political terms, says James Schneider, former communications director for Jeremy Corbyn (who graced the pages of GQ), a magazine story and its cover can reach people outside the scope of typical messages. It remains in circulation for a month and remains longer.
“That’s the positive part,” he says. “The downside risk is looking stupid, rude, out of touch, or out of tune in some particular way.” When Corbyn appeared in GQ, his team insisted on street clothes, according to Schneider. “Normally, the magazine would try to make people look cool in a conventional and aspirational way in a consumer way. It’s not Jeremy’s vibe and we didn’t want it to look like his day out in 900 quid Gucci shoes.”
But, he says, it’s no wonder Truss wants a show in the pages of Vogue. “Liz Truss is very Instagrammable so I’m sure she’d love it. And I’m sure if she wants to be in Vogue after September she will be. She’ll try to recreate Mrs Thatcher’s best outfits in whatever magazine she likes.”
A Vogue spread can be controversial. Liz Tilberis, who ran both UK Vogue and US Harper’s Bazaar, used to coax celebrity subjects by pointing out that the beautiful image could sit on the piano.
Theresa May sat in American Vogue, not British, and cut the fashion after previously being criticized for wearing £1,000 brown leather trousers.
In the United States, Vice President Kamala Harris posed for a photo shoot while campaigning in 2020. Pictured in a black blazer and capri pants with Converse sneakers, she was unhappy with the cover photo and asked her attendees: “Would Vogue represent another world leader around here?” A spokesperson for US Vogue said editors felt the image captured Harris’ “authentic and approachable nature”.
Some are refusing, including Tony and Cherie Blair and David and Samantha Cameron, expressing concern that luxury readers will disagree with the message they want to send. Some, like Hillary Clinton, initially accepted (when she was portrayed as a determined first lady after the Lewinsky affair) and later rejected the magazine when she ran for office.
Michelle Obama accepted in 2009, 2013 and 2016. Laura Bush, Barbara Bush, Nancy Reagan and Melania Trump never made the cover as first ladies. Trump is said to have found this hard to swallow. She had succeeded in 2005, but not after her husband was elected.
After her successor, Jill Biden, appeared on the cover earlier this year, Melania claimed Vogue was “biased”. “They have likes and dislikes, and it’s very obvious,” he shot.
But the calculations, on both sides of the deal, are complex. Stephanie Winston Wolcoff, a former US Vogue staffer in charge of editor Anna Wintour’s glamorous Met Ball, later became a Trump White House adviser before offering a lengthy retraction of the latter role in a book, Melania and Me. He said the magazine was no longer just looking for movie stars and first ladies — it wanted world leaders.
“Like the Met Ball, the invitation usually comes from the magazine, not the other way around,” he says. But, warns Winston Wolcoff, “the magazine knows who it wants to interview and why.”
Amy Odell, author of a recent biography of Wintour, points to the recent cover featuring Ukrainian first lady Olena Zelenska, which drew criticism from conservative commentators. He says the reaction “speaks to the power of the brand.”
“Vogue still has a lot of cultural relevance and they’re still investing enough to produce quality images,” he says. “Their access is so good because they write positive articles, take beautiful photos and give them space so that people want Anna and increasingly [British editor] Edward Enninful stamp of approval.
And that turns out to be a two-way street. After rumors surfaced that Wintour was running to be the US ambassador to Britain in 2013, a post that never materialized, Michelle Obama opened Wintour’s Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. “They [the Obamas] they felt the story about their ambassadorship had been turned and they wanted to support her,” says Odell.
But there are also nuances to the exchange. The political aspects of the magazine no longer give fashion credit to every look, and Zelenska’s profile barely mentioned her clothes, which would have seemed awkward under the circumstances. “They’ve evolved their approach and politicians are reevaluating the optics of being in a fashion magazine,” says Odell.
The first lady of Ukraine, Olena Zelenska, appeared on the cover of Vogue. Photography: Annie Leibovitz for Vogue
Eve MacSweeney, who was features editor at British Vogue and director of features at the US edition, says: “Nicola Sturgeon was right when she said she got into Vogue by asking her: You wouldn’t normally push towards its pages.”
Horse trading and consulting only goes so far, it seems. Every now and then decisions are made to mark an event in the public record: a new administration, a royal birth or the retirement of a tennis star (Serena Williams broke the news of her retirement to Vogue).
Within these exchanges there is a certain sense that the fashion magazine offers an aspect of continuity that the political sphere alone cannot muster. “What’s interesting is the increased desire to be featured,” says MacSweeney, who worked to get members of the Blair, Cameron and May administrations into Vogue.
“I found that British people were often very wary and worried that being seen in this kind of elitist context would hurt them. I say, go for it! If they’re interesting and influential, we want to read about them in Vogue, and why not -us a great portrait that will appear for eternity in every Google search?”
But, he adds: “As far as seeing Liz Truss in the magazine pages, it’s not a PR tool for her. She has to wait and see if it ticks the right boxes for the editors, which may not happen never”.
