India, June 27 -- Denim? For a Vogue cover? Groundbreaking.

And that's how Anna Wintour commenced her nearly four-decades long reign over the institutional fashion vanguard that is, American Vogue. The year, was 1988 and the November edition in the magazine's 96th year, was perfectly placed to predict the mammoth shift in sands when it came to defining fashion, both high and street, for the oncoming last decade of the century.

"Has there been a mistake?" was the first query from the magazine printers at the time because the finalised shot sent, was so unlike what Vogue had stood for, decades in the making, shared Anna, in a 2012 personal recounting of her first Vogue cover. Israeli model Michaela Bercu, all of 19 at the time, graced the...