by It was, as male model Tyson Beckford says in the opening episode of In Vogue: The 90s, “a great time to be alive.” Especially if you happened to be young, famous and beautiful. Beckford spent that decade looking down imperiously on mere mortals from the oversized Ralph Lauren posters that featured him in glossy advertising campaigns. Sort of like Christ the Redeemer over Rio, but in a tight white polo vest and with one arm around Naomi Campbell.
In the 1990s, fashion had the power to anoint our gods and goddesses. A Vogue cover was a coronation ceremony. Supermodels were pop culture’s darlings, glossy magazine editors the power behind the throne. This imperial age of fashion was set in motion with precise timing by the January 1990 cover of British Vogue. Peter Lindbergh’s black-and-white portrait of Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, Christy Turlington and Tatjana Patitz heralded the beginning of the supermodel age and kicked off a decade in which fashion was the engine of pop culture. Over the next decade, the party moved straight from the front row to Groucho and on to the next morning’s covers.
In Vogue: The 90s is a six-part Disney+ retrospective of a decade that had it all. The magic of the 1990s is that it was both luxurious and reckless, and one of the joys of this show is the candid footage of the era’s nights out. We see Liam Gallagher brimming with free bar energy at his after-party, Liz Hurley serving up a bombshell in her Versace safety-pin dress, her smile widening as the flashbulbs go off, everyone smoking Marlboro Lights and tumbling out of black cabs in Louboutin heels.
The alchemy is the delicate dance between glamour and grunge, between the classy and the daring. This was the decade that encompassed Kurt Cobain in a moth-eaten cardigan and Puff Daddy – as he was then known – in a white fur coat. On the runway, it ricocheted from the apple-pie wholesomeness of the early supermodel era to Marc Jacobs’ iconic grunge collection and Tom Ford’s raunchy reign at Gucci. It was the moment when the red carpet brought Hollywood sex appeal to the once-sleepy world of awards shows, but actresses still dressed as they felt like, not as they were contractually obligated to.
The 1990s were brilliant. I should know – I’m old enough to have been there in the front row. I went to Miami with Take That, attended one of Jennifer Lopez’s weddings and accompanied Tracey Emin to Paris Fashion Week. But ’90s nostalgia runs strong among those who weren’t even born then. The hottest gigs of 2025 will be the return of Oasis, 29 years after their legendary performances at Knebworth. With their baggy jeans, crop tops, cycling shorts, baseball caps and scrunchies, most Gen Z have adopted their wardrobes straight from the 1990s.
London became the fashion centre of the world with Lee McQueen as ringmaster and Kate Moss as muse
Vogue: The 90s tells the story of how glossy magazines – not just Vogue itself, but Face and iD – became the most important newspapers of pop culture. Edward Enninful, who was fashion director of iD as a teenager, tells the story of how London, with its outstanding fashion schools and outrageous club scene, became the centre of the fashion world, with Lee McQueen as ringmaster and Kate Moss as muse. There are interviews with two titans of American Vogue, styling legends Grace Coddington and Tonne Goodman; the charming Hamish Bowles, a national treasure of British fashion and host of a podcast that gave rise to the idea for this series, who has returned to the industry after a serious stroke two years ago; and some wonderfully entertaining guest appearances by legendary fashion editor Carlyne Cerf de Dudzeele, a leopard-print Gallic Cruella de Vil who gleefully recalls the tantrums and tiaras of fashion’s most capricious era.
But even with an all-star cast that includes Kim Kardashian, Naomi Campbell, Tom Ford, Gwyneth Paltrow and Baz Luhrmann, there’s no doubt who the star of In Vogue: the ’90s is. As Goodman puts it with unmistakable clarity, “Vogue is Anna and Anna is Vogue.” Wintour is the Logan Roy of this world. The supporting cast of stylists and protégés play the roles of Connor, Kendall, Roman and Shiv. The tone is set right at the beginning, when an off-screen voice politely asks Wintour to remove her trademark sunglasses for an interview. The clear, matter-of-fact way in which she declines, certain that her word is gospel, reflects the absolute power Wintour wields throughout the Vogue empire.
Wintour’s influence on pop culture extends far beyond fashion. She invented an archetype – “a chic, strong boss,” as Kim Kardashian calls it – that became the blueprint for women in the spotlight. From Kardashian herself to Gwyneth Paltrow and Victoria Beckham, many of the most successful women of subsequent generations have adopted her script, in which a feminine wardrobe is balanced by a cool, detached emotional tone that seems more patrician than maternal. The secret of how Wintour’s personal power endured – even as the power of the once-important glossy magazines crumbled around her – is a mystery that remains hidden behind those dark glasses.
The show is an X-ray of fashion’s power dynamics and a cardiogram of pop culture’s swinging pendulum, tracking the prevailing winds of the decade as they change direction, from the perfectionist supermodel fever of the decade’s early days to Perry Ellis’ “grunge” collection that made waves at New York Fashion Week in 1992. Wintour makes no secret of her loathing of grunge, but as Marc Jacobs says, “No power in the world” – not even Anna – “can stop an idea whose time has come.” Yet just two years later, we see Amber Valletta opening Tom Ford’s Gucci show in a nearly unbuttoned silk blouse and velvet hipsters, a moment she remembers as a “soundwave” of sexual energy. The ever-wry Ford observes of the sudden shift from grunge to glamour that “you can’t be depressed forever.”
“So much happened in the ’90s that shaped where we are in fashion today,” notes Goodman. “As Anna says, the ’90s really did change our world. The affronts of hip-hop and grunge opened our eyes to the critical importance of fashion in culture – and we welcomed every revelation.” The 1990s were indeed a great time. Nostalgia has never looked so good.
