The Magazine as Museum: 18 Vogue Editorials Inspired by Art

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Jessica Chastain in Theyskens’ Theory, right.

Left: Frederic Leighton, Flaming June, 1895, oil on canvas. Photo: VCG Wilson / Corbis / Getty Images.
Right: Photographed by Annie Leibovitz, Vogue, December 2013.

Costume Art,” the upcoming Met exhibition, will bring together art and fashion with the dressed body as the nexus between them. That’s a combination Vogue also tackled over the years, though in different contexts and usually without concerns around conservation. The magazine has often published photographs loosely evocative works of art. Consider a famous 1931 snap by George Hoyningen-Huene of a model in a Vionnet dress who looks every inch like a classic Hellenic sculpture. In other instances life (and fashion) actively mimic art. Who can forget when Cate Blanchett channeled Queen Elizabeth I as she was portrayed in the Armada Portrait? Or when Nicole Kidman slipped into a black velvet dress to play Madame X, as painted by John Singer Sargent? Recreations of specific paintings have included a 1945 rendition of Edgar Degas’s At the Milliner’s and a 2023 reimagining of Edward Hopper’s High Noon. Scroll to see these Vogue editorial stories and many other meetings of art and fashion in the pages of Vogue.

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Maya Hawke in a Miu Miu dress, right.

Left: Edward Hopper, High Noon, 1949, oil on canvas. © Dayton Art Institute / Gift of Mr and Mrs Anthony Haswell / Bridgeman Images. © 2026 Heirs of Josephine N. Hopper / Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY.
Right: Photographed by Annie Leibovitz, Vogue, December 2023.
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Jessica Chastain in Alexander McQueen, right.

Left: Vincent van Gogh, La Mousmé, 1888, oil on canvas. Photo: Heritage Images / Getty Images.
Right: Photographed by Annie Leibovitz, Vogue, December 2013.
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Saoirse Ronan in Balenciaga by Nicolas Ghesquière, right.

Left: John Everett Millais, Ophelia, 1851-1852, oil on canvas. Photo: The Print Collector / Getty Images.
Right: Photographed by Steven Meisel, Vogue, December 2011.
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Saoirse Ronan wears a Valentino Haute Couture velvet dress; De Vera necklace, right.

Left: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Bocca Baciata, 1859, oil on canvas. Photo: Gift of James Lawrence / Wikimedia Commons.
Right: Photographed by Steven Meisel, Vogue, December 2011.
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Rooney Mara in Vera Wang, right.

Left: John Everett Millais, Ophelia, 1851-1852, oil on canvas. Photo: The Print Collector / Getty Images.
Right: Photographed by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott, Vogue, November 2011.
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Cate Blanchett in Balenciaga by Nicolas Ghesquière; Ella Gem necklaces, right.

Left: George Gower, Armada Portrait, ca. 1588, oil on canvas. Photo: Universal History Archive / Getty Images.
Right: Photographed by Irving Penn, Vogue, July 2007.
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Nicole Kidman in a Rochas by Olivier Theyskens dress; Fred Leighton earrings, right.

Left: Claude Monet, Woman with a Parasol-Madame Monet and Her Son, 1875, oil on canvas. Photo: GraphicaArtis / Getty Images.
Right: Photographed by Irving Penn, Vogue, September 2003.
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Nicole Kidman in Oscar de la Renta; Jana Starr fan, right.

Left: John Singer Sargent, Madame X (Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau), 1883–84, oil on canvas. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Arthur Hoppock Hearn Fund, 1916.
Right: Photographed by Steven Meisel, Vogue, June 1999.
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George Balachine as Pulcinella, right.

Left: Jean-Antoine Watteau, Pierrot, formerly known as Gilles, 1718-1719, oil on canvas. Photo: The Print Collector / Getty Images.
Right: Photographed by Duane Michals, Vogue, December 1972.
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Coty Originals lipsticks named for the days of the week, plus a stick of Anytime lipstick, enabled “a multiple lipstick life.”

Left: Jean Cocteau, Two faces in profile, 1960, pen drawing. © ARS / Comité Cocteau, Paris / ADAGP, Paris 2026. Photo: Auctionet.com.
Right: Photographed by John Chan, Vogue, August 1967.
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Ingrid Boulting.

Left: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Helen of Troy, 1863, oil on panel. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
Center: Ingrid Boulting, hair by Ara Gallant, New York, July 1969. Photograph by Richard Avedon © The Richard Avedon Foundation.
Right: John Everett Millais, Portrait of a Girl (Sophie Gray), 1857, oil on paper laid over panel. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
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Veruschka in a djellaba of gold ringed transparent organza fabric by in Gladstone in Libya.

Left: Egyptian civilisation, New Kingdom, Dynasty XVIII, detail from the Talatati wall: The King and Queen pay tribute to Aton, polychrome relief. Photo: DeAgostini / Getty Images.
Right: Photographed by Franco Rubartelli, Vogue, April 1967.
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Veruschka in a white mink Gunther Jaeckel tennis dress with George Segal’s Walking Man at Sidney Janis Gallery.

Photographed by Horst P. Horst, Vogue, November 1966
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Fransisco Goya, Manuel Osorio Manrique de Zúñiga or The Little Red Boy, photographed at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Jules S. Bache Collection, with a doppelganger.

Photographed by John Rawlings, Vogue, December 1962
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From left, Alfred H. Barr, Jruniorthe Museum of Modern Art’s Director of Collections, Metropolitan Museum of Art curator, Robert Hale, and Hermon More, Director of the Whitney Museum of Art, with work by 53 living American artists.

Left: David Teniers the Younger, Archduke Leopold Wilhelm in his Gallery in Brussels, Detail (Self-Portrait), ca 1651, oil on canvas. Photo: Getty Images.
Right: Photographed by Herbert Matter, Vogue, February 1950.
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Atalanta, Pandora, and Anne Clifford, the daughters of Sir Bede and Lady Clifford, right.

Left: Claude Monet, Women in the Garden, 1866-1867, oil on canvas. Photo: Mondadori Portfolio / Getty Images.
Right: Photographed by Clifford Coffin, Vogue, October 1947.
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Joan Pedersen in a ruffled dress and shawl by Arpad and shoes by Joyce on the cover of Vogue’s “Week-end Plans” edition.

Left: Édouard Manet, Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe, 1863, oil on canvas. Photo: VCG Wilson / Corbis / Getty Images.
Right: Illustrated by Rene R. Bouche, Vogue, June 1947.
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“At the Milliner’s”—after a Degas Painting

Left: Edgar Degas, At the Milliner's, 1882, pastel on paper. Photo: Heritage Images / Getty Images.
Right: Photographed by Erwin Blumenfeld, Vogue, February 1945.
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“Balenciaga, in his Mid-Season Collection, draws on Goya’s richness of fabric and colour, and round-hipped, tiny-waisted court belles,” right.

Left: Goya (Francisco de Goya y Lucientes), Majas on a Balcony, ca. 1800–1810, oil on canvas. H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Right: Illustrated by Carl Oscar August Erickson, Vogue, July 1939.
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Pale pink crepe pajamas by Vionnet, right.

Left: Marble statue of a woman, 2nd half of the 4th century BCE, marble. Gift of Mrs. Frederick F. Thompson, 1903. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Right: Photographed by George Hoyningen-Huene, Vogue, November 1931.