Hamish Bowles: In the December 2003 issue, Vogue unveiled their editorial feature, "Alice in Wonderland." Nearly 20 years later, it's heralded as one of the greatest fashion shoots of all time. With towering figures like editor Grace Coddington and photographer Annie Leibovitz leading the charge, it was set to make fashion history.

Grace Coddington: It was one of those things where everything just went, well it went wrong, but it went right, you know? 

Annie Leibovitz: I don't even think we knew what we were quite doing when we were doing it, how unbelievably special it was. 

Natalia Vodianova: Still people comment until today I meet people and they're like, "oh, you are that girl from 'Alice in Wonderland.'"

Mark Holgate: It took the of a model, a location, a cast, clothes, and elevated it to such an incredible degree. And it just had a level of escapism and fantasy and imagination and vision and budget. But to be honest, that was rare in the fashion world. 

Hamish Bowles: With a shoot on the grandest of scales, featuring a cast of legendary design icons, what happens when fashions maddest geniuses recreate the dizzying scenes from Lewis Carroll's signature fantasy, "Alice in Wonderland?" History is made.

Welcome to In Vogue: the 2000s, a podcast about the decade that ushered in a new millenium and redefined boundaries in fashion and society. Alongside fashion leaders, cultural icons, and Vogue's editorial team, we'll dissect the decades most impactful style moments and how they've shaped our culture today.

Anna Wintour: I'm Anna Wintour. 

Hamish Bowles: And I'm your host Hamish Bowles. To bring a cherished children's classic to life across the pages of the magazine meant calling on the skills of a brilliant editorial team. The styling for the "Alice in Wonderland" shoot fell under the creative direction of legendary editor, Grace Coddington. By 2003, Grace, a star model in the sixties had been at Vogue for more than a decade. And her visionary style and inventiveness were responsible for some of Vogue's most acclaimed fashion shoots. 

Ivan Shaw: Grace Coddington is arguably the most important fashion stylist in the history of fashion styling. 

Hamish Bowles: This is Ivan Shaw, Corporate Photography Director for Condé Nast. 

Ivan Shaw: With Grace Coddington, in terms of the idea of having a fashion vision and you know this extraordinary creativity and, comes down to ideas. And Helmut Newton talked about this, photographers and stylists either have ideas, or if they don't, if you look at Annie Leibovitz or Grace Coddington, the ideas just keep coming. Grace loves the idea of fantasy. She loves fairytales and Vogue was a lot about fantasy, certainly during that time, always, but certainly during that time. 

Hamish Bowles: Grace's collaboration with Annie Leibovitz meant partnering with one of the most celebrated photographers of the age. Annie has captured some of the most iconic images of the century. Images that hang in major art museums around the world and include a who's who of portraits from legendary rock stars, actors, sitting presidents, and royalty. 

Ivan Shaw: Annie Leibovitz, I think is the most impactful, influential editorial photographer in the history of the magazine medium. I don't think there's anybody who you could say has had more of an impact on magazines and the culture of magazines and the way people see images in print. Truly one of a kind and enormous resources and ability. I started my career at Vanity Fair in the photo department and I remember when I first started somebody said to me, Annie Leibovitz is the hardest working photographer in the business. And 20 years later, I would have said the same thing to somebody else. Her dedication to the craft and her focus is just extraordinary. She brought something totally unique to fashion photography. It's a perspective that was completely different and her pictures are totally different. 

Hamish Bowles: Here's Belgian Fashion Designer Olivier Theyskens.

Olivier Theyskens: I had a pleasure to work several times with her and the preparation behind the pictures is like tremendous. I think that to Annie brings dimension in her pictures. It's always a little bit of a mystery and I've been witnessing her ways of photographing and there's definitely not one click. It's a very special process. What I think is incredible for me has always been like the charisma of the person herself. 

Hamish Bowles: To tell such a fantastical story on such an enormous scale, Grace knew she needed to rely on a photographer at the height of their powers. A scrupulous collaborator who could execute a clear vision, which is precisely why Grace partnered with Annie Leibovitz. 

Grace Coddington: We knew it was going to be with Annie because the, all those major productions, are kind of always with Annie, because she's wonderful at telling stories. Whether they be fairy stories or just stories, stories. She really makes it happen and her whole approach of doing these stories, she shoots everything as a double page spread, which is just ideal for a story. 

Hamish Bowles: He is world renowned photographer, Annie Leibovitz. 

Annie Leibovitz: I was still in the early days with Grace and not really being a fashion photographer or being able to understand, in her mind to be able to understand fashion that I knew nothing. That I was always starting from scratch every single time I worked with Grace, because in the long run you realize that Grace has her own set of criteria and her own sense of perfectionism. It's only in hindsight that you look back and you realize how much that served us, like working together. It could urge on painful basically, but I had such respect and admiration for Grace in the long run and everything we've ever done. And just because her impeccable sense of the clothes and what's right. And, you know, I work with other editors who bring racks and racks and racks of clothes to a shoot, and Grace comes with like a rack with eight sets of clothes on it and has the confidence to understand what she picked and what's right for what we're doing. And I admire that and admire that so much. 

Hamish Bowles: The extraordinary team at the helm of the shoot wanted the story to celebrate fantasy and whimsy in order to properly fit within the December issue of Vogue. 

Grace Coddington: It's the Christmas issue, so it was really, you know, something joyful and like a fairy child, you know, it was a tradition. There was this continuity of you knew you could expect some magic and romance in December. 

Hamish Bowles: It's a tradition that's been going strong at Vogue for decades.

Ivan Shaw: The holiday issue was always the most important issue of Vogue and they would always do a trip. In the 1960s, it started to become affordable for people to get on a plane and travel. Suddenly you can get on a plane and go to Hawaii and go to Egypt. So fashion magazines, particularly Vogue, would do a trip in every December issue. And I think in looking at this story, you can see this in a sense as the evolution of the adventure, a trip. Like by 2003, it was still great to go to Egypt or Hawaii or Mexico. Sure you can do a wonderful photo shoot there, but that had kind of been done. This is a trip to a fantasy world. 

Hamish Bowles: Bringing an entire fantasy world to life is no small task in the beginning, Gace and Anna Wintour traded ideas back and forth and the initial concept was to interpret an entirely different story. Here is Grace Coddington. 

Grace Coddington: Anna came to me and said "For our Christmas issue this year, Grace, I really want you to do Mary Poppins because it's coming to the stage in New York. And, you know, I love that story and I I'd really like you to do it." And I really can't stand Mary Poppins, so I kept saying "We have to think of something else because she doesn't turn me on at all and besides she only ever wears black dresses and I know you're not going to like that." Anyway, after a while I persuaded Anna that absolutely I wasn't going to do Mary Poppins and I came up with Alice in Wonderland because I just felt it was so charming and I did feel that it lent itself to fashion very, very well. 

Hamish Bowles: Lewis Carroll imagined Alice as an innocent in satin and ribbons. Disney mader her flaxen-haired and saucer-eyed. But Grace had a new idea- bring the land of merry unbirthdays and late running rabbits to the pages of Vogue. 

Grace Coddington: Anna agreed to it. And then she came up with a brilliant idea that actually we could have all the characters in "Alice in Wonderland" played by all the designers, which was kind of genius and it sort of went from there. 

Hamish Bowles: Annie and Grace drew inspiration from some of the oldest drawings and photographs depicting the story of "Alice in Wonderland". Here's Annie. 

Annie Leibovitz: So when I started to do my research and start to pull the illustrations, I said, "Oh my gosh, well, this is amazing." It was a wealth of visuals, you know, to look through. And I remember that first meeting with Grace I said, "Oh my God, look, we have all this." It is a magazine. You only have so much space and I had to abridge the story as best I could and decide what illustrations would we decide to sort of bring to life. 

Hamish Bowles: But before they got too far down the rabbit hole, they'd have to find their Alice. 

Grace Coddington: Natalia had to be Alice because somehow she just was Alice. 

Hamish Bowles: Natalia Vodianova's rise as a model was just as remarkable as Alice's tumble into Wonderland. In Natalia's youth, she'd helped support her family in Russia by selling crates of fruit. Eventually, she attended an open casting call in 1999 and soon booked her first modeling job. Within just a few years, she was dominating runways and had multi-million dollar contracts with Calvin Klein and L'Oreal. Natalia's unique journey made her the inevitable choice to play the spirited heroin of Alice.

Annie Leibovitz: She was young and she was such a good actor and has such good sense of humor and a good spirit. 

Grace Coddington: She was magic, she was incredible, and a great model. You know, and I just worked with her so much at that point. She's just in just about every story I did because she just always made it work. 

Hamish Bowles: Here's model Natalia Vodianova.

Natalia Vodianova: Actually Grace gave me the two books and definitely was really fun to read them in English because of course every book in its original language, it's a very different experience and a different story. 

Hamish Bowles: With Alison place, it was time to populate the rest of the characters in her world. To execute the vision of Vogue's "Alice and Wonderland" required assembling 13 designers at the pinnacle of their careers. Here's Ivan Shaw. 

Ivan Shaw: Olivier Theyskens, Lewis Carroll. John Galliano, the Queen of Hearts. John Paul Gaultier, the Cheshire Cat. Marc Jacobs, the caterpillar. Donatella Versace, the Gryphon. Tom Ford, the White Rabbit. Viktor and Rolf, Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Stephen Jones, the Mad Hatter. Christian Lacroix, the March Hare. And also starring Helmut Lang, Karl Lagerfeld and Nicolas Ghesquière.

Hamish Bowles: Each designer was tasked with creating a dream dress for Natalia and each look would bring to life a different scene from "Alice and Wonderland." Grace's only rule was that they had to create something in Alice's signature blue. On the day of the shoot, Natalia donned blue dress after blue dress. From icy blue to deepest saphire, becoming Alice after Alice. 

Natalia Vodianova: It remembered the shoot itself, as often with Annie, took very little time. I had to do a little bit of hair and makeup, but it was more about setting up the shot. And so it seemed like in different places in the park, people were working to, to set up the shot simultaneously. Everyone was on a, a lot of adrenaline. 

Hamish Bowles: The crew built elaborate scenes around the Louis XVI folly garden outside of Paris, where the shoot took place. And they worked to refine every last detail until the moment Annie started taking photographs. 

Natalia Vodianova: We were outside of Paris. We were in some sort of big, big park, big gardens. I cannot even imagine how many people there were, a lot. Easily 150. We had two days to shoot. I remember very well Annie wanted three days. In the end, for whatever reasons we could only do two days and for her, it was a lot of stress because of course it was very complex shoot with a lot of important characters that she wanted to capture perfectly.

Hamish Bowles: Opening the shoot with Olivier Theyskens' portrayal of "Alice in Wonderland" author Lewis Carroll, seemed like a natural way for Grace and Annie to welcome viewers into their world. 

Grace Coddington: Olivier Theyskens played Lewis Carroll. He was just such a dreamy, romantic, and so wonderful looking and we decided that the opening picture with him, with a huge camera cause he was also a photographer, do that in black and white to separate it from the others. 

Hamish Bowles: In this particular photograph. Natalia's Alice wears an iridescent blue flower ruffle Rochas dress, specifically designed by Olivier. 

Olivier Theyskens: It looked like a flower, like a huge flower with sort of like tentacles. We really never really knew if we would call it a jellyfish or a flower, but it was a little bit like in-between and full of ruffles with lace. It was a very strange like dress and Grace loved it because I think that a lot of Lewis Carroll's pictures like the girls are posing with flowers and so Grace was really into that design. And I remember Grace carrying the dress herself with all the tentacles, like a few meters long were like hanging behind and I can tell my picture is my favorite of the shoot. It's true because there was something in the attitude. We both looking dreamy, I felt very lucky or so the picture was in black and white and it's the opening picture. The whole thing. I was very, very happy. 

Hamish Bowles: Alongside Olivier, the cast of design has populated the world of "Alice in Wonderland", each embodying their respective characters with their signature styles. Yet in the beginning, the choice of who would embody each character was not always clear. As Grace and Annie recall. 

Grace Coddington: The white rabbit, I always thought should be Karl and I think I'd seen him in a white suit and I felt that he was the perfect white rabbit and Annie argued and argued and argued with me. And then when we asked Tom Ford, if he would be part of this story, he said he would, if he could be the white rabbit, 

Annie Leibovitz: That was the only kind of, not a disagreement really, but Grace wanted to cast Karl Lagerfeld as the White Rabbit- and I wanted Tom Ford. 

Grace Coddington: And I'm like, I had to give in at that point. And he said, you know, cause the White Rabbit is really, really sexy and I want to play the White Rabbit. 

Hamish Bowles: In the end, Tom Ford was of course the perfect White Rabbit. 

Grace Coddington: And he was hysterical because he arrived on set and all the designers dressed themselves, which was great for me because I didn't have to worry about them. And he came looking unbelievably dapper in pure white suit. He had gloves. He had a beautiful handkerchief in his pocket. His shoes really shiny, beautiful tie, everything. And Annie wanted to do him falling down the rabbit hole. I dunno what he thought he was going to be doing. 

Hamish Bowles: As the white rabbit, Tom Ford found himself in over his head, but only in the most literal sense of the phrase. Here's Natalia Vodianova again.

Natalia Vodianova: We have to imitate, like we falling through the black hole. And so here comes Tom. Perfect, uh, wide gloves, perfectly ironed and of course, fitted suit. Something absolutely extraordinary. And suddenly Annie says, " Well, Tom, do you mind standing on your head?" You know, Annie and how she can be very direct, but how that directness and, and in the presence Tom and in his old perfection, this kind of requests seems so ridiculous that everybody freezes. It feels like the wind stops blowing at that moment because everyone is waiting for Tom's reaction. And of course, everybody expecting the worst. Everybody expecting him to, to say, "Excuse me, what do you mean exactly? I'm not an Acrobat." And Tom looks at her and says, "On my head?" And here Tom smiles his most charming smile and says, "Sure, of course let's go for it." But there, it was the, just the, a huge giggle and the atmosphere immediately, everybody got back to work, breezed out and, uh, and enjoyed this moment, you know, watching Tom Ford gets him on his head and of course he did it so beautifully and everything actually made sense and was not at all ridiculous. 

Annie Leibovitz: I knew that he couldn't literally hang upside down. So we put a black cloth on, just put stuff behind it and we made it like a, an incline for him. I think Tom kept sliding down the duvetyne, but, um, Tom, Tom did it.

Grace Coddington: Tom was amazing, he didn't say a word. He did not say a single word. And there he is upside down and the only thing he whispered to me, he was very worried because his tie was like flapping sideways a bit. And his pant legs had come up, you know, cause he was upside down and he was worried that he might be showing too much sock. And I said, "For God's sake, Tom, you're upside down, you know, what are you expect?" But it was very, very funny. So he was the White Rabbit.

Hamish Bowles: Tumbling down the rabbit hole with Tom Ford, taking tea with the Mad Hatter and March Hare portrayed by Stephen Jones and Christian Lacriox, each photograph was more striking than the last brimming with creativity and imagination. Yet, perhaps there's no scene as iconic in this surreal story, than when an unsuspecting Alice consumes a potion and to her horror and confusion grows to gigantic stature. With a portrait of Helmut Lang hung across from her, we see Natalia crouched and crammed inside a tiny house. Her head scraping the ceiling, a hand shooting out of a window, a foot through the fireplace. Whilst dressed in Lang's hauntingly, beautiful organza mini dress. 

Natalia Vodianova: That picture is very special and that was work of [inaudible], who did the set design. 

Hamish Bowles: Here's Grace Coddington. 

Grace Coddington: He built this beautiful house completely to scale, extraordinary. And it, it was sort of in the backwoods somewhere, he had built it, and I came to Annie and I said, "you've got to see the house it's incredible. You know, it has everything from a tea set all scaled to size and a table and chairs and picture frames, and it's all remarkable." And she comes along, eventually, and she looks at it and throws her hands up in the air and says, "Oh my God, it's back to front. I need her head on the right hand side of the page. And I need her foot up the chimney on the left-hand side of the page." And the house was actually built the other way. So you couldn't just flip it around because you know, the walls were pointing the wrong way. So actually we had to do that picture, this was in July and then we held it over until September, and he rebuilt the whole house and FedEx'd it over to New York. And we actually did the picture, I think maybe even in her studio in New York, like three months later. And it was the right way round and she fit perfectly and she could put her hand out the window and, uh, and so on and so on.

Natalia Vodianova: I had lots of fun getting in, uh, less fun, getting out. 

Hamish Bowles: The construction and then reconstruction of the perfectly elaborate miniature house exemplifies how Annie and Grace's complex visions became reality.

Natalia Vodianova: I think it wouldn't be an Annie, Grace shoot if there wasn't stories like that, and the people were, you know, suffering a bit. 

Hamish Bowles: Just as in the pages of Wonderland, larger than life personalities, dominated the shoot. Annie and Grace demanded the most from their subjects, and the indomitable Karl Lagerfeld wasn't afraid to swing a croquet mallet back in their direction. 

Grace Coddington: We finally, we got to Karl and he refused to play anyone at all. He said, "I'm going to play myself." And I said, "There's no Karl Lagerfeld in 'Alice in Wonderland.'" And he said, "I don't care. I'm going to play myself. And I can only do it at five o'clock in the morning" because he was continuously angry with Annie. They had a sort of ongoing battle and he wanted to really mess with her. So he said five o'clock in the morning or nothing. 

Annie Leibovitz: He was in, out, out, in and out and he finally showed up very early in the morning and I wanted him to hold the pig and he would have nothing to do with the pigs. So Natalia holds the pig. I mean, he was being Karl Lagerfeld, what are you going to do? 

Grace Coddington: Of course, that was terrible for us because we had to get up two hours before to do hair and makeup, and also it was an hour out of town. So anyway, he turned up in his normal outfit. We had this little piglet, this really cute baby piglet and, and Natalia was to hold the little piglet and Karl was to stand there. 

Natalia Vodianova: So Grace just handles me a baby pig and says, "Okay, keep her very, very quiet." And then she sends me way behind Karl in the far away, not far away, but, but far enough. And it seems like Annie's very much working with him and, and not paying attention to me. And actually this baby piglet was squealing all the time, but I managed before going on set, really calm him down and make him fall asleep. So the whole thing worked and she was over the moon and Karl left and everybody was celebrating.

Grace Coddington: She was so amazing. She really knows how to work with babies. So she got this little baby pig and she held it against her heart. And I think the pig could feel her heart going.

Hamish Bowles: After the break, hear which identically dressed designers teamed up to form a dynamic duo that took top hats to an entirely new level.

Even amongst the frenzy, Grace agrees that Viktor and Rolf truly embodied Tweedledum and Tweedledee. 

Grace Coddington: They were hysterical. They came out at the end of every show and they always dressed identically. So, you know, it was made for them. It really was. And true to their word they turned up in these hysterical suits that had printed top hats all over, identical bow tie, plus a top hat. And they wouldn't let me touch Natalia. They insisted on putting her dress on themselves and her dress was composed of eight dresses on top of each other. 

Hamish Bowles: The version of Alice's dress that Viktor and Rolf had designed had a neck line resembling a stack of eight shirts with collars that fanned out dramatically, and cinched in the waist with a satin bow. The drama of the mini dress' collar was accentuated by Natalia's pose. She placed her hands firmly on her hips as Tweedledee and Tweedledum eyed her suspiciously. Viktor and Rolf's identical hats, spectacles, and suits perfectly encapsulated their characters. 

Grace Coddington: They are so immaculate and almost anal about everything. So they did the styling for that one completely, well it was their dress anyway? So that was okay. But then when it came to them, you know, Annie wanted one with his arm around the other, and they didn't want to do that because it just pulled the jacket open a teeny bit and you could see a tiny bit of shirt and it bothered the hell out of them. They were like so upset. They said, no, no, we've got to stand straight. And she said too bad you're not. And she won of course. So, um, I noticed now that one of them's bow tie was slightly off kilter. I'm sure they'll never forgive me for that, but they were hysterical really. I mean that's when it really started coming together, the whole thing. 

Hamish Bowles: Annie Leibovitz recalls the joyful fervor with which John Galliano embraced his inner queen of hearts just a few scenes later. 

Annie Leibovitz: It was interesting because some designers really had their heart set on being certain characters. I remember I was scared to ask Galliano about being the Queen of Hearts and he, before I even had a chance to get it out of our mouths he was like, "I want to be the Queen of Hearts!" 

Grace Coddington: John Galliano was hysterical and got completely into his role. And he had made himself the most incredible outfit that, also at that point, he just started to work out and he, you know, he wanted to show his body a bit. So it was, uh, like a one sleeved dress robe coat. I'm not quite sure what you might call it. And he had a great hat, which was like a paper hat and he kept screaming at everybody, "Off with your head, off with your head." And his boyfriend was there, Alexis, and his dog too, so they were all there. 

Annie Leibovitz: It was so beautiful to see John and how he was dressed and Natalia and the way she was dressed and the simplicity of it, it sort of carried the day. 

Hamish Bowles: In the electric image captured by Annie, with an accusatory finger thrust at Natalia's Alice, you could nearly hear Galliano's cries as he shouts into the camera. 

Grace Coddington: Natalia had this big bouncy ruffled, kind of nylon blue, almost like a sort of Spanish dress with like tight hips and then big ruffles round the hem. And she's also carrying a flamingo, which Annie wanted to be a real flamingo and I said, "It's not going to happen, Annie sorry." So in the end we had a fake one, but you know, she really thought that we could carry a flamingo and, you know, actually they're very nervous birds and, you know, they get injured very, very easily. So, so it was not real. 

Hamish Bowles: For the final image of the spread, Grace featured one of the youngest designers in the cast, Nicolas Ghesquière.

Nicolas Ghesquière: So Grace Coddington called me and she said, "Okay, you're going to design a special dress for Natalia Vodianova, who's going to embody and represent Alice in the story." So I first designed the dress and then they told me, "okay, uh, stay tuned, we're going to call you back and tell you which character we wish you could be in the story." So I start to work on the dress and I didn't know if I was going to be the cat or a cup of tea or a rabbit, the possibilities was very large. 

Hamish Bowles: Nicolas could never have predicted his role in the "Alice in Wonderland" story. Perhaps because it didn't exist in the classic version. Grace invented a new role for Nicolas, a prince who gazed on as Alice fell through the looking glass. 

Nicolas Ghesquière: I mean, who would refuse to be a prince for an afternoon with Annie Leibovitz and Grace Coddington and Natalia Vodianova for Vogue. So I showed up on the shoot with the dress, put Natalia in the dress, everyone's happy. Set up Natalia on the fireplace and then Annie is holding the camera and she starting to shout, "No, this is not working something's wrong." 

Grace Coddington: She started cursing. I said, "What's the matter?" And she said, "Well," she said, "The ruffles on the back or on the wrong side, she's going to have to wear the dress back to front." and, um, I can't do this. I can't do this to Nicolas. 

Annie Leibovitz: Well, it wouldn't be the first time that happens. 

Grace Coddington: "This is just terrible." And it was a very intricate dress, a very intricate ruffle, it wasn't just like any old, ruffle, it was very, very special. And I looked at Nicolas and his face kind of dropped when she said, "Let's put it on back to front," which wouldn't have worked anyway cause then the ruffle would be on the front and not the back. And it still wouldn't be on the side that she wanted because she had the room all set up and Natalia had to be walking into the next story, so she had to be on the right side. 

Natalia Vodianova: Poor Nicolas I think had a, a mini heart attack. 

Nicolas Ghesquière: The tension was very high. Everyone was very worried. I mean, first of all, I was worried that my dress was not going to appear on the story, which was a big deal, of course. And so I said, "Okay, how long do you have?" And Annie said, "Well, maximum 45 minutes." So I took Grace's hand and I took Natalia's hand and we went back to the van and then I undid half of the dress, sowing the dress together again. We've, Grace's giving me the bin, Natalia holding the fabric during the moment when I was sewing on herself, on the body. She was so adorable, so patient, waiting, you know, well. So I had two unique assistants for that moment and it was Grace Coddington and Natalia Vodianova. 

Grace Coddington: Within 15 minutes, he came back out with the whole dress completely remade with a ruffle on the other side, so that Natalia could be photographed from her right side, going through the glass. I was in tears somewhere, but it was, uh, that was quite something.

Hamish Bowles: In the end, Nicola's intricate ruffles made the final shot. In an ornate decorated French salon, Natalia stands perched on the mantle of a stone chimney piece. As she pushes into the frame of the oversized mirror, Alice prepares her escape into the shadow world. Lost in his own thoughts, Nicolas reclines opposite Alice on a plush chair beneath the glimmering chandelier. With all of the madness, the restitching, and the squealing of pigs, the impossible shots, and impossible hours, and an impossible amount of time. Did it all happen? Was it nothing but a curious dream? Unlike Alice, when the trip to Wonderland ended for Grace and Annie, the reality of postproduction set in. Here's Ivan Shaw, Corporate Photography Director for Condé Nast. 

Ivan Shaw: And I was responsible for the post-production like getting the pictures in and making sure we got the material. And so the pictures would come in and I would lay out the pictures in our planning room, we had these light boxes and boards in the planning room, and everybody would come in and just kind of stand back in awe. As I think when these pictures came in, we just sat there and we were like, "Wow." 

Hamish Bowles: The surreal fantasy escape into Alice's world that Grace and Annie had created evoked a childlike sense of wonder and awe. 

Ivan Shaw: This idea of like fantasy and an idealization and taking a reference like "Alice in Wonderland" and turning it into a fashion story, which is absolutely brilliant. And you can see how designers would love that too, because designers it's all about ideas and it's all about fantasy and it's all about inspiration. So when you come to them and say, "oh, we want to do a portrait of you and a model cause we're doing a story about the collections or the couture or something," right. And there'll be like "Fine" you know, you could do a beautiful portrait of Karl Lagerfeld with Natalia Vodianova or something right? But here, what about if we kind of create this incredible fantasy based on an idea that everyone is totally familiar with and that's, what's kind of amazing about it. Here's this sort of fairy tale that we all know about. We've all read or seen in a movie or know in some form. And here it is as taking the fashion world and making the designers characters in the telling of "Alice in Wonderland." 

Hamish Bowles: Here again is Annie Leibovitz. 

Annie Leibovitz: Today I don't think twice about taking something out or moving something around or changing the background. I think fashion and portraiture allow a lot of creative, artistic freedom. One of the reasons I sor of ventured off into portraiture was, was being able to step away from journalism and allow me to be creative. On some level, not being a fashion photographer, I think served us all well. So there could be an outsider looking in and something like Alice, you know, to bring Alice to life. You can see how much teamwork this is, and it is a production that it involves so many people who, and I'd have to say with Alice the talent that came together. Julian Deece for hair and Gucci for makeup and, and the designers themselves and the clothes they brought to the table. It definitely felt like a moment in time. That was very special, but it's wonderful because it's working on so many levels. You have, the designers actually engaged in what they're doing. And as soon as befitting, what, what role they've taken on everyone is doing what they do at their best. 

This is Mark Holgate Vogue's Fashion News Director. 

Mark Holgate: You talk to younger photographers who are probably like kids, maybe teenagers, when this story came out and it's something I hear them yearning for is a sense of narration and narrative and character and character building and telling stories that perhaps feel a little more removed from the reality of today, but also can perhaps in some way, speak to the reality of today.

Hamish Bowles: As if the magazine itself had consumed the same growing potion that had made Alice larger than life, the shoot could not be contained by the pages of Vogue. It found its way into popular culture and fashion folklore. 

Annie Leibovitz: Everyone involved seemed to come together in a way that has made it more timeless. So the shoot feels very timeless to me.

Hamish Bowles: Here is Grace Coddington. 

Grace Coddington: Everybody does seem to remember it, you know, fashion people anyway, who read Vogue certainly remember it as a story. Because it was, I dunno, probably 20 pages or something. That's quite a big story for Vogue. I have to say it's a story that when people say, you know, "What was your favorite shoot?" I always quote this one without hesitation, because it was one of those things where everything just went, well it went wrong, but it went right. You know, um, and everybody just was so good and so on it and played their role and, and enjoyed themselves and I think you'll see it in the pictures. 

Hamish Bowles: Once again, Alice herself, Natalia Vodianova. 

Natalia Vodianova: The story, still people comment until today I meet people and they're like, "Oh, you are that girl from "Alice in Wonderland."

Hamish Bowles: By now the photos from the 2003 "Alice in Wonderland" story have cemented their status in the hall of fame of fashion shoots. They're representative of what made the early 2000s such a remarkable time in the fashion world. When you ask the minds behind "Alice in Wonderland", if the magic of that shoot could ever be reproduced, they all agree on the answer.

Natalia Vodianova: No, absolutely impossible. 

Grace Coddington: I don't think it would happen today. There were too many things aren't available now, like time. 

Annie Leibovitz: I'm looking back now and I looked at the itinerary. I cannot believe how much time we had to actually create this. 

Ivan Shaw: Only Vogue could have gotten everybody together and made this happen. Only Annie Leibovitz could have photographed it. Only Grace Coddington could have been the fashion editor on this. There's no other version of this that would have worked to be blunt. And you look at the complexity of the images and the ideas behind the images and then the photography itself, is extraordinary.

Mark Holgate: Every image has levels of narrative and thought and imagination getting into it. It's not just a model standing, wearing clothes, being photographed in a studio or against some kind of exterior backdrop. They have a permanence about them, you know, so much of fashion imagery, and this is not a criticism, sometimes good fashion imagery is something that just captures a moment, an instant moment, and is kind of gone. And you look back at it and you think, well, that's so 2008 or that's so 2003. But with these images, they're just kind of profoundly lasting. You know, they really stand up to the test of time. 

Hamish Bowles: It's all these unique conditions that came together to make the "Alice in Wonderland" images secure their place in history as arguably the greatest fashion shoot of all time. While it's amazing to see star designers embody the cast of characters of "Alice in Wonderland", it was a clear signal of the changing times. The early years of the decade, saw a lowering of the ramparts between Hollywood and high fashion, forging a partnership between these two industries. Learn how the role of fashion in Hollywood fundamentally changed forever. In the next episode In Vogue, the 2000s.

In Vogue: the 2000s is presented by Anna Wintour produced by Vogue in partnership with Pod People. Production support by Jacquelyn Jamjoom, Tony Mantia, Rachael King, Matt Sav, Aimee Machado, Madison Lusby, Fredia Lucas, Maria McCoy Thompson, Morgane Fouse, Mariah Dennis, Daniel Brunelle, Gordon Bramli, Nicki Stein, Percia Verlin, Stefanie Bichara. Theme music composed by DJ Ghostdad. Vogue's editorial team is Laird Borelli-Persson, Mark Holgate, Nicole Phelps, and myself Hamish Bowles. Special thanks to Vogue's Creative Editorial Director, Mark Guiducci, VP of Digital Video Programming and Development, Robert Semmer, VP of Audio, Julie Shen and Director of Podcasts, Nico Steele. Please do subscribe to the podcast. It helps new listeners find the show. You can find additional information, incredible imagery, and episode references in the show notes or at vogue.com/podcast. I'm your host Hamish Bowles. Until next week, In Vogue.