Eleven out of twelve months of the year, Vogue USA is not a popular magazine.
Which isn’t to say that it’s unpopular, necessarily, but that it probably sits somewhere in between “Practical Poultry” and “Computer Arts Projects” in the sales stakes, if that gives you any idea.
It’s a different story come late August, though, when everyone suddenly scrambles for a copy of the famous September issue. Which poses all kinds of logistical problems for us as magazine sellers!
Our suppliers insist that we only change our order levels once every three months… which means that in order to get the magazine loving public the one issue of Vogue that they so truly crave, we also have to order the hundreds of copies of the October, November and potentially December issues of the same magazine that they resolutely do not want.
(Good news: through some combination of pleading, gentle persuasion and invocation of the dark arts, we did manage to order lots of copies of the September issue only; if you haven’t got your hands one yet then get into one of our stores, pronto.)
But why is the September issue such a big deal?
Certainly, there’s a few reasons which spring to mind: the film that came out last year, the fact that it represents the changing of the seasons in the Northern Hemisphere as designers unveil new styles for Autumn and Winter. But if that is the case, then why isn’t the March issue a similarly big deal?
And why does everyone want Vogue US (which they apparently do not read during the rest of the year) over our domestic edition or the arguably superior British and Italian editions? Call us ignorant, dear readers, but we have no idea and this one question that even Google cannot answer.
So, tell us, why is the September issue of Vogue such a big deal?
