The owner of an English pub in the countryside says he was asked by a fashion magazine to change the name of the bar because it is in a village called Vogue.
Mark Graham, who runs the Star Inn at Vogue, said he got a letter from Conde Nast, the publisher of British Vogue, saying that the name could “cause problems” because people might get the two businesses mixed up.
He said the letter from Sabine Vandenbroucke, the chief operating officer of Conde Nast Britain, asked if he would change the name. It also said, “Please respond within seven days or we will take action.”
Graham didn’t back down.
“The big boys always try to step on the little boys,” he told ITV. “As soon as I realized what they were trying to do, I told them, “You’re not getting me, my handsome.”
He wrote back and said that the village in Cornwall County, about 250 miles (400 kilometers) southwest of London, is much older than the magazine, whose British edition was started in 1916.
“I guess that when you chose the name Vogue, you didn’t ask the people of the real Vogue for permission,” he wrote.
“The clear answer to your question about whether we’d change our name is NO.”
Graham said that he got another letter from Conde Nast on Friday. The letter said that the company regularly checks how the name “Vogue” is used, but that “we did not need to send such a letter this time.”