The curators of the National Portrait Gallery are thoroughly professional. Vogue Australia has been a vibrant part of our visual culture for sixty years. That’s why it’s disappointing that this show never really gets off the ground. By the time we get to Julie Bishop’s shoes it seems to be over. Is it because, as has been mentioned, the Vogue Australia archive was destroyed in a fire in 1982? A national tragedy, but the work of those great photographers, people like Laurie le Guay, Patrick Russell, Dieter Muller and Grant Matthews, was still there in the pages as ink on paper. Visitors were looking at the wonderful covers through the glass cases, how I yearned they would have had more than a few brief opportunities to have those issues opened up for them to see the fashion, design and photographic riches I know are inside. But, although it was so close on the printed page this show didn’t seem to care all that much about the history of Australian photography. Or photographers. Or design. Or fashion. But I think ordinary visitors do, more than is sometimes realised.