The Italian Job

Artist Arthur Buxton is nearing the end of his collating, recording and sampling work for the fourth and final print edition in the Vogue Covers series. Having finished the printed versions of British, Paris and USA Vogue Buxton is currently compiling the colour data needed to generate the last International Vogue magazine to be ‘covered’ for the edition - Italian Vogue.

After recently speaking with Arthur Buxton about the duality of the printed colour series (as artworks and information charts) the artist discussed the structure and function of colour that underpins his interest in trends.

British Vogue Covers 1981 - 2011

US Vogue Covers 1981 -2011

Within each piece the small bar charts (measuring 2.4 by 2.9 mm at 1:10 scale to the originals) show the five most prominent colours, proportionally, in an individual Vogue cover. Each column is a year starting with September and working down to October at the bottom. The columns run from 1981 on the right working across to 2011 on the left. After viewing the work one becomes increasingly a where of the differences in overall national colour palettes.

Paris Vogue Covers 1981 -2011

The most striking trend is the recent preference for paler colours, which is evident on all three charts. Seasonal trends are more subtle. The Paris edition is mostly published only ten times a year which shows up as duplicated rows in August and January. Gaps occur where covers are unavailable.

Aside from seasonality and longer term changes in colour trends, other, more quantitative data is evidenced. By looking at ‘Paris Vogue Covers 1981 - 2011’ we can see a sudden change in tones which occurs in late 1987. Colombe Pringle became the magazine's editor-in-chief in December 1987. The colours undergo a sudden change again in 1994 when Joan Juliet Buck, an American, was named Pringle's successor.

Also see Design site Fast Company  and their 'Infographic of the day' review featuring Arthur Buxton's vogue series: Seeing Fashion History, by Reading 130 Years of Vogue into Color