Covers are magazines’ business cards. Attractive, controversial or celebratory, they have framed the most important people and events of our century. They have changed their face and made us dream, making historical moments eternal. Many are the personalities or events that in the last decades have gained the cover of a magazine, entering the collective imagination and leaving an everlasting mark over time.
We want to share the 10 covers that went down in history becoming the paper-based witnesses of many events that changed the world.
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Iconic Magazine Covers
Life, August 1964
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The American magazine was founded in 1936 by Henry Luce (formerly founder of Time and later of Sports Illustrated). In the February issue, an article was dedicated to 4 emerging stars of the British music scene that were in the US for their first international tour: the Beatles. The editors didn’t give too much importance to the band, they basically ignored them. However, they had to change their minds a few months later when the Beatles returned to the US as the most famous band in the world. So, Life “threw” the quartet onto the cover using a picture taken by John Dominis, a famous war and sports photo reporter hired by the magazine to document the Korean War, the rise of the Kennedys and the Olympic Games.
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Iconic Magazine Covers
Glamour, August 1968
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Katiti Kironde became the first black woman to ever appeared on the cover of the magazine. The girl, an 18-year-old Harvard student and daughter of a Uganda diplomat, won Glamour’s “Top 10 Best Dressed College Girls” contest with the highest score. Smiling and wearing a white shirt, a colorful scarf and elegant pearl earrings, she became one of the symbols of racial integration in the United States. No black woman before her had ever appeared in a fashion magazine. Even today, this one remains one of the best-selling issues of all times.
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Iconic Magazine Covers
Life, August 1969
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The magazine published a special number dedicated to the Apollo 11 mission on the moon occurred in July 1969: To the Moon and Back. On the cover, the image of the astronaut Buzz Aldrin, photographed by Neil Armstrong (who also appears in the picture reflected on Aldrin’s helmet) during the first lunar mission ever done in history. Life’s cover still remains one of the most famous covers of all times. This issue’s cost today ranges between $ 15,000 and $ 50,000.
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Iconic Magazine Covers
Rolling Stones, January 1981
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In December 1980, the American magazine Rolling Stones commissioned to Annie Leibovitz, head of the magazine’s photography, a photo shooting of John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Initially, the idea was to portray only the former Beatles but the singer wanted his partner to appear in the shooting as well. Leibovitz came up with the idea of taking a picture of the two completely naked. However, Yoko wasn’t comfortable to shoot naked and decided to keep her clothes on. Only Lennon appears naked in the picture, crouched next to his partner. The image not only shows the deep love between the two but it is also the last photo of Lennon. The singer was murdered a few hours later.
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Iconic Magazine Covers
National Geographic, June 1985
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The Afghan girl photographed by Steve McCurry and whose portrait was published on the cover of National Geographic became the symbol of the Afghan wars and conflicts that were devastating the country during that period. Taken in one of Peshawar’s refugee camps, the photo portrays Sharbat Gula, a twelve-year-old orphan girl whose ice eyes “captured” the world. The image was initially discarded by the magazine’s art director. But the editor-in-chief Bill Garrett understood the extraordinary evocative power of the image and decided to publish it on the cover.
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Iconic Magazine Covers
Vogue US, November 1988
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Anna Wintour becomes Vogue America’s Editor-in-Chief. With her, Vogue would change its face forever. Close-ups started to be removed from the covers, replaced by full-body shoots. The witness of this change was the Israeli model Michaela Bercu who wore ripped jeans and a Christian Lacroix’s T-shirt. Ladies and gentlemen welcome to the new Vogue era!
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Iconic Magazine Covers
Vanity Fair, August 1991
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Demi Moore posing on the magazine’s cover…naked and pregnant. If showing a pregnant woman body was considered a taboo during that time, the American actress broke the mold, showing off proudly how pregnancy marvelously changed her body. It was another little provocation addressed to the American conservativism which was still shaking after seeing “Indecent Proposal” starring Demi Moore and Robert Redford. The photo spread across the world changing the way of representing the female body as well as passing down the message that women can be sexy even when they are pregnant. Like Demi, Natalie Portman would also appear on the cover of Vanity Fair naked with her baby bump, portrayed in all her beauty by Annie Leibovitz.
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Iconic Magazine Covers
People, September 1997
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On August 31, 1997, Lady Diana lost her life in a car accident in Paris together with her partner Dodi Al-Fayed. On September 15, People magazine dedicated a special issue featuring the princess smiling with a tiara in her hair that illuminated her face. It was a way to celebrate the iconic and eternal beauty of a woman whose tragic death changed Britain’s history.
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Iconic Magazine Covers
The New Yorker, September 2001
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After the tragic terrorist attack that hit America on September 11, 2001, the New Yorker came out with a total black cover where you could see just the silhouettes of the two towers that that morning collapsed in the heart of the Big Apple and where thousands of people lost their lives. Realized by Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly, this “non-image” became the perfect representation of the emptiness that the terrible attack left behind and of the lives that were stopped in just a few minutes. For the New Yorker, there were no photographs that could express the pain felt in the USA, a world power that on that day had been stripped of its humanity.
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Iconic Magazine Covers
Vogue US, April 2008
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We all know that the covers of the famous American magazine are among the most awaited in the world. And when the “Bible” of style announced in April 2008 that a black man (the NBA champion LeBron James) was going to end up on the cover for the first time in the magazine’s 116-year history, you can imagine readers’ excitement! But once out, criticisms were not what Vogue hoped for. On the cover, LeBron dribbles the ball with one hand while with the other holds the waist of Brazilian model Giselle Bündchen. Despite Giselle’s smile, many accused the magazine of racism as the image seemed to recall King Kong while shaking a terrified Fay Wray in the movie filmed in 1933.
