‘Hilarious’: Cornish pub will not change name despite letter from Vogue owner
Standing seven storeys tall in Mayfair’s Hanover Square – a short walk from Savile Row, Oxford Street and Michelin-starred restaurants – there is little mistaking Vogue House for what it is: the home of the fashion bible’s British edition.
However, a six-hour drive away, a pub in the Cornish countryside has become a site for concern for bosses at the fashion giant. Despite it standing for hundreds of years, the landlords have been asked to rename it.
The Star Inn at Vogue, named for the hamlet in which it is situated, has received a message from the magazine’s owner asking for the change because a link between the two businesses “is likely to be inferred”.
In a cease-and-desist letter delivered to the couple, Condé Nast’s chief operating officer, Sabine Vandenbroucke, argued the company is the proprietor of the Vogue mark, not only for the magazine first published in 1916, but “other goods and services offered to the public by our company”.
At first, the pub’s landlords, Rachel and Mark Graham, were surprised. But it did not take long for their shock to dissolve to humour.
“If someone had obviously taken the time to look us up, it wouldn’t have taken five minutes to say: ‘Oh, there’s a place called Vogue,’” said Rachel, 49, who is not a reader of the magazine.
The letter, dated 1 March, said: “We are concerned that the name which you are using is going to cause problems because as far as the general public is concerned a connection between your business and ours is likely to be inferred.”
The Star Inn has been in the small village of Vogue, near St Day, for hundreds of years, Mark wrote in his reply – in which he responded to the request with a “categorical no”.
The letter was “hilariously funny”, he wrote. He believes it was
Read more on theguardian.com
