Would you pay $1,575 a year to access Vogue’s archive? That’s what the revenue keepers at Condé Nast are hoping, after they unveiled the iconic fashion magazine’s digital vault on Thursday.
The cover of Vogue, June 1950.
The Vogue Archive includes every American issue published by the magazine since 1892–every page, including covers, advertisements and more than 400,000 full-color images.
The archive–aimed primarily at designers, fashion students, teachers and academic institutions–took nearly two years to complete, Vogue says. In addition to employing standard search functions, users can refine their searches by color, materials and clothing. The magazine plans to update the archive monthly with each new issue, and will make some of it available to current print subscribers in 2012.
“The Vogue Archive is expected to become a definitive resource for students of fashion and the visual arts,” the release says. “Additionally, as a comprehensive primary source of modern social history, the Vogue Archive opens new research avenues in the humanities and gender studies.”
Other consumer magazines have tried to leverage their digital archives before, including Playboy, Rolling Stone and Time. But none have attempted to charge such a hefty fee for access. (Playboy’s “Hard Drive,” for instance, costs $299.)
Annual subscriptions for individuals cost $1,575; schools and libraries can gain access for multiple users at a corporate discount that will vary, depending on the institution’s size.
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