An Afternoon at Hanover Square

If you have ever broken the spine of a Vogue magazine and relished the content of its glossy pages, you can appreciate the desire to step into the revolving doors of Vogue House to see the cogs turning within the engine room of one of the world’s highest regarded magazines.

The Vogue House Tour is a highly anticipated event in the Condé Nast College student calendar.

On entering, you are greeted by a wall of Condé Nast magazine covers mounted behind the reception desk. You have arrived.

The Vogue offices are located on the fifth floor of the iconic building. Our tour started in the advertising department, where it was explained how the ad pages are allocated and sold to luxury brands.

Moving throughout the offices and hearing from members of the Vogue team, another highlight was the beauty department. Drawers and cupboards filled to the brim with every lotion and potion you’ve ever wanted to try, the air around the desks scented with aromas of the latest perfume. Endless samples sent from various beauty brands clutter the desks, unopened, yet to be tested.

If you have ever watched the September Issue, which documents the process of Anna Wintour and her team preparing for their biggest issue of the year, then you have gained some understanding of how a magazine tends to look before it is published. It is remarkable to see the magazine story boarded up on the walls of the art department, raw and unfinished, waiting for the editorial content to fill the pages.

The desks of the staff working within Vogue tell their own story, each piled high with individual personality and a plethora of samples, realms of content spread across keyboards and tucked onto windowsills. It is a great insight into the brain of the editorial team, the madness behind the cohesive and thought provoking content that is published within Vogue. It is here that the very elusive Vogue-ness of a piece is created.

photo credit: themuse.tv