There’s money in those old Vogues...

“It’s not easy to buy a vintage Richard Avedon print,” says Conor Masterson, co-owner of Ramsgate-based magazine archive Elegantly Papered. “But you can buy a vintage issue of Harper’s Bazaar edited by Diana Vreeland and art directed by Alexey Brodovitch.” He believes vintage fashion magazines are “an accessible way of collecting great art”. 

The market is thriving. Masterson and his wife Michelle Meyer-Masterson began selling vintage fashion magazines in the early 2000s and have seen a marked increase in demand and resale price over the past decade. “The value has gone up around 20 per cent each year,” says Masterson. The closure of titles in recent years, and a nostalgic reappraisal of print and the quality and values of yesteryear, have contributed to increased collectability.

Set some boundaries, else you’re going to go crazy

Queen magazine – published by Jocelyn Stevens in the 1960s before it merged with Harper’s Bazaar UK in 1970 – is a title that Elegantly Papered recommends for collectors in search of a canny buy. Helmut Newton worked for Queen after being fired from Vogue Paris in 1964, and those issues often contain interesting images by the photographer. “In the ’60s he was beginning to develop the key aspects of his style,” says Masterson. “Those almost storytelling narratives or filmic set-ups. Queen allowed him to experiment with that.” A 1964 issue featuring a cover model wearing a red Courrèges trouser suit, photographed by Newton, is currently available for £250.   

Other popular titles include i-D, Wet and Nova, which ran between 1965 and 1975, with articles by writers including Susan Sontag and photographs by Helmut Newton, Don McCullin and Guy Bourdin (a full run of Nova is selling for £25,000 at Elegantly Papered). Town, a consumer off-shoot of the trade magazine The Tailor & Cutter, is another sought-after men’s style title published in the ’50s and ’60s, with early photography by Brian Duffy and David Bailey. The most expensive single magazine the duo has sold, however, is a 1940s issue of British Vogue, for £900, which is rare not only due to its age but “because during the war, paper was recycled to wrap bombs and cigarette packets”, adds Meyer-Masterson. Current highlights include a 1946 issue featuring work by Erwin Blumenfeld, Cecil Beaton, Lee Miller and Horst, available for £224.

Full or partial runs of Self Service, Nest, Egoïste and i-D have realised the highest prices at the cult London bookshop Idea. “Often the first 10 issues of any title are the most desirable, where the publication can be seen to be forging its identity and creating its fan base,” says co-owner Angela Hill. “A title is at its most innovative in this phase – possibly because of a lack of funds or resources, which means thinking in a different way or using new talent.” Titles that are no longer published, and those with certain celebrities on the covers, increase collectability too.

Hill notes that vintage fashion-magazine collectors aren’t just those who work in the industry. “Like the scope of people who buy books, magazines are multifarious in appeal. Graham Coxon wrote an album titled Happiness in Magazines for a reason!” This is echoed at Connecticut-based The Cary Collection, which sees high demand for issues of US Vogue from the ’30s, when the covers were often created by notable illustrators Carl Erickson or Eduardo Benito. “We sold [singer] Nick Jonas a six-issue bound set of 1937 Vogue magazines that he purchased as a gift for $1,800,” says owner Thomas Cary. 

“It’s the photography that I really love, like the Linda Evangelista issues photographed by Patrick Demarchelier – all the glamour,” says Auckland-based collector Penny Calder. She started buying British Vogue as a teenager in the ’70s, when they would arrive each month by sea freight to New Zealand. Around 15 years ago, the self-professed Anglophile began going further back, collecting issues from the ’50s and ’60s, even stretching to the years during the second world war. She scoured the internet, forged relationships with dealers and sourced issues through local attic sales. Her collection now includes every issue since 1950. “At some point you have to decide which dates you’re going to collect and set some boundaries, otherwise you’re just going to go crazy.”

The most she has ever paid for a single magazine is £250, for a May 1966 issue with Celia Hammond on the cover, which eluded her for decades. Her all-time favourite, though, is the February 1977 “Green Jelly Cover” of British Vogue, shot by Willie Christie: a close-up of a model eating the dessert. “It broke all the rules for a magazine cover: don’t show food, don’t use green and always have eye contact. It ended up being the bestselling issue of the year.”