1959 Vogue Magazine "Comet to New York" - Emilio Pucci

This issue of British Vogue is dated January 1959. It is a winter issue of travel and leisure, with ski and cruise clothes photographed by Eugene Vernier and Tony Armstrong Jones, and features on cruising, the new ski set-up, the New York theatre scene and the BOAC Comet to New York. Its cover is one of the images that inspired Iain R. Webb's Vogue colouring book. The issue appeared three months after one of the most significant events in the history of travel: the start of regular jet passenger service across the Atlantic.

By the late 1950s fashion magazines addressed a reader who travelled for pleasure: to the ski slopes in winter, on cruises to warmer waters, and increasingly across the Atlantic. Each destination required its own wardrobe, and Vogue's January issues presented them in turn. Ski clothes were becoming sleeker and more fashionable, while cruise wear offered light, bright clothes in the middle of a British winter. The combination in this issue reflects a leisured, mobile way of life that the magazine both reported and encouraged.

On 4 October 1958, BOAC began the first regularly scheduled transatlantic passenger service with jet aircraft, flying de Havilland Comet 4 airliners between London and New York. The Comet seated 48 passengers in two cabins, Deluxe and First Class, and greatly shortened a crossing that could take up to 20 hours on propeller aircraft; westbound flights still made a refuelling stop at Gander in Newfoundland. Pan American followed on the same route within weeks with the Boeing 707. Vogue's feature on the Comet to New York, published three months later, records the novelty and glamour of the new jet age.

The issue is built around movement: skiing, cruising, flying and an evening at the theatre in New York. Each feature presents a destination and the clothes to match, turning the magazine into a guide to a year of travel. Tony Armstrong Jones, then a young photographer, brought an informal, observational style to fashion photography that would become influential in the 1960s. The pairing of the Comet with Broadway suggests a new kind of trip: a short visit to New York, made possible by the speed of the jet.

Magazines of the late 1950s record the moment when air travel moved from novelty towards routine for the fashionable few. This issue captures it within months of the first transatlantic jet service, alongside the winter sports and cruising that defined leisure at the time. Its cover's connection to Iain R. Webb's colouring book adds a later layer of interest. With a sound spine and a pristine interior, it is a clear document of the start of the jet age.