There’s more change in fashion, and this time it’s not a designer: American Vogue has a new editor. Or rather, head of editorial content.

Chloe Malle, the former head of Vogue.com and the favorite to take over the front row seat, has indeed been handed the reins of the magazine — or rather, content-creating platform. The one that Anna Wintour, the former editor and still editorial director of all Vogues (still Ms. Malle’s boss), likes to call “the bible” of the industry.

But is it? What does Vogue really represent today?

Once upon a time, back when Arthur Baldwin Turnure created Vogue in 1892, it was supposed to chronicle what was described as the ceremonial side of life. Condé Montrose Nast, who bought it in 1909, built it into the ultimate fashion magazine, arbiter of taste and elegance. Editors like Edna Chase and Diana Vreeland reinvented themselves as veritable style dictators, issuing decrees from on high for all to follow — or at least aspire to follow, even if doing so involved a certain essential elitism that was by definition part of the deal.

When Ms. Wintour took over in 1988, she built Vogue into an empire, amassing more and more territory and acting as a chess master with designers behind the scenes until she herself became a pop culture caricature. “The September Issue,” the documentary by R. J. Cutler released in 2009, captured the moment of peak influence for posterity, but it also turned out to have caught what increasingly seems like the end of an era.

Now everyone can access the work of designers, and designers can speak directly to their communities without depending on the good graces of Vogue (or any other glossy magazine). It’s not the most fashion-forward book — that niche reserved for indie magazines that have the freedom to push the boundaries of image-making — or the most newsmaking.

In extending Vogue’s reach, making it more palatable for more people, Ms. Wintour diluted its promise. That was around the time social media rendered a key source of its power, its position as conduit between what was happening next (in fashion, in culture) and those who would consume it, null and void.