At first glance, it’s all chiffon and glamour: Kate Moss in a huge hooped skirt, photographed by Mario Testino in 2008; David Hockney posing with a sequin-clad Maudie James in 1968, as captured by Cecil Beaton; Anne Gunning, swathed in pink in Jaipur in the 50s, looking away from Norman Parkinson’s lens.

But the National Portrait Gallery’s major spring exhibition, celebrating 100 years of British Vogue, will argue that it is much more than a style magazine.

“As well as the fashion bible it has now become, it is a cultural record of the times,” said current editor Alexandra Shulman at a launch event for Vogue 100, A Century of Style, on Monday. The exhibition, opening on 11 February next year, will launch the magazine’s centenary celebrations, which also include a behind-the-scenes BBC2 documentary.

British Vogue first hit newsstands in 1916 and – as with many desirable fashion brands – the ability to leverage th ... Read more »