Vogue 100. A Century of Style

n more than 2,000 issues, British Vogue magazine has acted as a cultural barometer, putting fashion in the context of the larger world in which we live - how we dress, how we entertain, what we eat, listen to, watch, who leads us, excites us and inspires us.

The century's most talented photographers, illustrators and artists have contributed to it. In Lee Miller it had, unexpectedly, its own war photographer; in Norman Parkinson, Cecil Beaton, David Bailey, Snowdon and Mario Testino the greatest portrait and fashion photographers of their generation; and in Beaton and Irving Penn two giants of twentieth - century photography.

From 1892, American Vogue chronicled the life of beautiful people - their clothes, parties, houses and habits - and the magazine was exported for intrigued British readers. In 1916, when the First World War made trans atlantic shipments impossible, its proprietor, Conde Nast, authorised a British edition.