Vogue had to apologize to an English pub owner

Vogue, in addition to being the name of an influential magazine headed by Anna Wintour, is a village in the parish of St. Day, home to about 4,500 residents located in the southwestern county of Cornwall. Location where Mark Graham, owner of a pub named the Star Inn at Vogue, lives. In March 2022, Graham found himself having to shrug off an email written by the Condé Nast group suggesting, rather bluntly, that he think about a new name for the pub because "our company owns the Vogue brand, not only for its very famous magazine first published in November 1916, but also for other products and services offered to the public by our company."

If regulars at the venue took it for a laugh, imagining a parallel between the glossy, glamorous world typically associated with the American magazine and the rural setting of grazing horses and streams along the county, they had to think again about the intentions of the publishing group, which ended 2021 with 2 billion in sales. Not least because, as Graham himself noted, it is unlikely to think that Madonna - Vogue is also the title of one of the singer's songs - could have come up with something like this.

So the owner of Star Inn at Vogue decided to respond to the email saying, "While I found your letter interesting, I also found it hilarious. And if a member of your staff had taken the time to investigate they would have discovered that our business, the Star Inn, is located in the small village of Vogue, near St. Day in Cornwall. The news began to circulate, became media, and the Condé Nast Group was forced to issue an apology. "I am sure you will understand why we regularly monitor the use of the VOGUE name, including at Companies House (which is how we were alerted to your company name)," wrote Christopher P. Donnellan, "however, you are correct to note that further research by our team would have identified that we did not need to send such a letter on this occasion."