Vogue Germany Oct 2009 30thAnniversary Issue: Karl Lagerfeld

Below is a preview of what’s in Lagerfeld’s Issue.

THEN WE TAKE BERLIN: German Vogue’s 30th anniversary issue spans a trio of 732-page volumes, each guest edited by a famous fashion personality with German roots: Karl Lagerfeld, Bruce Weber and Peter Lindbergh. “I thought it would be great to find some guest editors who have a relationship with our company,” said editor in chief Christiane Arp. Not to mention Germany itself, especially since Vogue’s anniversary coincides with the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the 60th anniversary of the Federal Republic of Germany. Arp said that Weber, while his name is typically German, is perhaps the most surprising contributor of the bunch. “Not so many people know Bruce’s grandparents emigrated from Stuttgart in the early 20th century,” she noted.
All three photographers took Berlin as the jumping-off point, with Weber shooting his stories in New York City and Montauk, N.Y., “with Berlin in his mind,” and Lagerfeld conjuring up the post-World War I period, Arp noted. Plenty of famous German personalities feature in the shoots, including Ute Lemper, Claudia Schiffer, Heidi Klum, Diane Kruger and Kirsten Dunst, whose father hails from Hamburg. Lagerfeld cast model Edita Vilkeviciute as Anita Berber, a dancer and actress whom he described as “the Kate Moss of Berlin in the Twenties,” while Schiffer channeled Rosemarie Nitribitt, a German call girl whose violent death caused a scandal in the Fifties. Weber reunited Margaret Lambert, the German high jumper who wasn’t allowed to compete at the 1936 Olympics because of her Jewish religion, with Karoline Herfurth, the actress who will portray her in the feature film “Berlin 36,” out this week in Germany. Lindbergh, meanwhile, contributed pictures of the city and portraits of such luminaries as Wim Wenders, Andreas Gursky and the late Pina Bausch. Arp opted for text covers in the colors of the German flag in lieu of photos.
Each issue carries 414 pages of advertising, versus 223 pages a year ago. Anticipating strong demand for the collectible issues, which will be unveiled Thursday, Arp said German Vogue plans to print 265,000 copies, versus a usual run of 200,000. Subscribers who have been with German Vogue from the very start, roughly 200 of them, will receive all three issues in a black linen box — and perhaps a pained look from their mailman.