Description
Collector's Note – Why This Issue Matters
August 2009 finds Christy Turlington at a biographical moment that makes this Vogue cover considerably more historically interesting than a standard supermodel appearance. Turlington had been one of the defining faces of the original supermodel era — alongside Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, and Cindy Crawford, she had defined the early-nineties vision of what a fashion model could be as a cultural force — and by 2009 she had spent the better part of a decade actively redefining what her post-modeling life would mean. The "Beauty and Soul" feature documented in the listing engages Turlington as she was simultaneously pursuing a master's degree at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health and completing a documentary film on maternal health and mortality — a project that would eventually become the film "No Woman, No Cry" and that reflected a genuinely serious commitment to public health advocacy that went well beyond celebrity philanthropy. Vogue's decision to put Turlington on an August 2009 cover and build a feature around her scholarly and humanitarian work rather than merely her physical presence was itself an editorial statement about what the magazine considered worth celebrating — and within the context of an issue framed around "The Age Issue" and remarkable lives across generations, the Turlington cover was a considered argument about what female achievement looked like. For collectors building an archive of Christy Turlington magazine covers and features, this Vogue represents the post-modeling chapter of her public life at its most fully articulated — a document of the person she had become rather than a nostalgic reference to who she had been.
The "Age Issue" framing that structures this August 2009 edition gives it an editorial coherence that extends well beyond the Turlington feature. The multi-generational fashion coverage — "No Limits" on versatile fall looks across generations, "Time Share" on a mother-daughter blogging duo working with the same wardrobe staples, "She Comes Undone" on four women confronting the subtle realities of aging — collectively constitute a sustained editorial investigation of what women's style and identity look like across the full arc of a life, addressed to Vogue's readership at a specific moment when conversations about aging, achievement, and female visibility were particularly active in American culture. The Marissa Mayer profile — documenting the Google executive at thirty-four, at the height of her influence at one of the most consequential technology companies in the world — adds a further dimension to the issue's portrait of contemporary female achievement, as does the Cindy Sherman feature engaging the artist's evolving relationship with self-revelation and the Jenny Lumet profile on screenwriting and motherhood. The Ana Ivanovic tennis profile adds athletic achievement to the mix. Together these profiles constitute a remarkably comprehensive gallery of accomplished women across multiple fields, assembled within a single issue's editorial framework that gave each individual feature additional meaning through its placement in the broader context. Collectors researching Vogue magazine issues from this period will find this August 2009 edition one of the more thematically coherent and editorially ambitious non-September issues of its year.
The specific combination of financial crisis context and the issue's optimistic, achievement-focused editorial content is worth noting as a documentary layer. August 2009 arrived at the deepest point of the post-2008 financial crisis's cultural impact on American life, and a Vogue issue built around female achievement, multi-generational style, and the reframing of women's aging as a source of experience rather than a problem to be managed was making an implicit editorial argument about resilience and value at a moment when many of those arguments were genuinely needed. The "Fashion's Quick Fix" feature offering embellished coats starting at nineteen dollars reflects the magazine's acknowledged awareness of the economic context — a nod to accessibility within a publication whose default register was aspirational luxury — and Jeffrey Steingarten's engagement with Nora Ephron's culinary world is its own kind of comfort in a difficult moment. Collectors researching fashion and cultural magazines from 2009 will find this issue a precisely dated artifact of how Vogue addressed its readership during the most economically anxious year of the decade.
About the Publication
Vogue was founded in 1892 and has been published by Condé Nast since 1909, operating continuously as the most authoritative fashion magazine in the American market across more than a century of publication. Under Anna Wintour's editorial direction, which began in 1988 and extended well through this 2009 issue and beyond, the magazine combined its traditional fashion authority with expanded cultural journalism, celebrity profiles, and serious feature writing on health, achievement, and the arts that distinguished it from competitors whose fashion credentials were comparable but whose intellectual range was narrower. By August 2009 Vogue was navigating the post-financial crisis moment with the institutional confidence and editorial depth that only a publication of its longevity and authority could maintain — the Turlington cover and the accompanying achievement-focused editorial package reflect exactly the kind of considered editorial response to a cultural moment of difficulty that distinguished Wintour's Vogue at its most purposeful.
Key Highlights Inside
- Christy Turlington cover and "Beauty and Soul" feature on page 128 — a profile of the supermodel at a specific biographical moment of scholarly and humanitarian engagement, documenting her Columbia master's degree in public health and her maternal health documentary work in a way that distinguishes this appearance from standard celebrity fashion coverage and makes it a primary source record of Turlington's post-modeling public identity at its most fully articulated.
- Marissa Mayer profile "Machine Dreams" on page 142 — a documented engagement with the Google executive at thirty-four, providing a primary source record of Mayer's public positioning at the height of her influence at one of the most consequential technology companies of the era, with particular historical interest given her subsequent highly publicized tenure as Yahoo CEO beginning in 2012.
- Cindy Sherman feature "A Brave Face" on page 150 — an unusual engagement with one of the most significant artists in contemporary American photography, focused on Sherman's relationship with self-revelation in the context of an artist whose entire practice has been built around strategic self-concealment, and representing Vogue's consistent engagement with serious visual art alongside its fashion content.
- Multi-generational style editorial spanning "No Limits" (p.112), "Time Share" (p.190), "Past Perfect" (p.168), and "She Comes Undone" (p.176) — a thematically coherent fashion and culture investigation of age, style, and female identity across generations that gives this issue an editorial depth unusual for a non-September August Vogue and constitutes a primary source document of how the magazine addressed aging and achievement within its readership in 2009.
- Ana Ivanovic tennis profile on page 136, Jenny Lumet screenwriter feature on page 146, and underwater explorer Anne Doubilet profile on page 154 — a range of female achievement profiles spanning sport, film, and science that collectively reinforce the issue's editorial argument about the breadth of contemporary women's accomplishment, documented here with the specificity that makes the full table of contents an unusually complete research resource.
- Jeffrey Steingarten on Nora Ephron's culinary world on page 104, Jeffrey Bilhuber's 17th-century Long Island home restoration on page 158, "Fashion's Quick Fix" embellished coats from $19 on page 186, and the "Black Beauty" racehorse feature on page 166 — the lifestyle and culture editorial architecture of a Vogue August edition navigating the specific economic and cultural context of 2009 with the breadth and tonal range that distinguished the publication's most confidently edited issues.
Condition & Rarity
Vogue issues from August 2009 are approaching their seventeenth year of existence — recent enough that surviving copies remain relatively available, but old enough that condition variation is meaningful, particularly for issues whose thematic ambition and confirmed newsstand provenance make them specifically valuable within the broader Vogue back-catalog. Very Good condition with minor edge wear is an honest and strong grade for a seventeen-year-old monthly fashion magazine, indicating a copy that displays cleanly, reads completely, and retains the full visual integrity of the Turlington cover without the structural damage or significant wear that would reduce its collector and display value. The absence of a mailing label is a meaningful condition attribute for a Vogue issue specifically, where the magazine's enormous subscription base means that label-free newsstand copies represent a minority of surviving examples; the complete Turlington cover image, undisrupted by adhesive damage or removal marks, preserves the primary visual document in its intended form. The plastic protective sleeve provides ongoing archival protection for a coated-stock publication whose cover surface benefits from protection against scuffing and oxidation over time. Collectors evaluating surviving examples of this issue should prioritize cover surface quality and the Turlington image integrity, spine condition, and the completeness of the documented feature content as primary condition criteria.
Looking for More Issues Like This?
A Very Good newsstand copy of Vogue August 2009 with the Christy Turlington cover, the Age Issue framing, and a fully documented table of contents including the Marissa Mayer and Cindy Sherman profiles is a more editorially substantial find than the August dating might initially suggest — the combination of Turlington's post-modeling humanitarian identity, the achievement-focused editorial package, and the specific post-financial crisis cultural context gives this issue a historical depth that rewards serious collector attention. If this issue is no longer available, the Christy Turlington magazine collection at OriginalMagazines.com is the most focused resource for other cover appearances and features from across her modeling and humanitarian career. The full Vogue collection offers surviving issues from across the magazine's history for collectors building a broader archive, and the 2009 magazine collection brings together issues from across that year's major publications for collectors interested in the full cultural and fashion landscape of a year that was unlike any other in the decade.