Friday, October 5, 2007

In Vogue

It’s October, the time when I start leafing through fashion magazines to decide how to update my look. Yes, I’m a bit of a fashionista (I had a perfect score at the Fashionista Quiz ). I adore pretty clothes, I’ve tried to figure out what works on me and what doesn’t, and I’m passionate about hunting for bargains.

Young ladies in the 1800s also leafed through magazines to decide what was in fashion. Marissa and I have been using prints from some of these magazines in our posts. Anywhere you see color, it was done by hand, one page at a time, for the 1,000-some copies that were produced. Sometimes a magazine also bound in swatches of actual fabric to touch and swoon over.

One of the more popular magazines was the monthly La Belle Assemblée. It was about 48 pages long and included essays, short stories or serialized books, reviews of new books or plays, sheet music, and fashion commentary. It talked about what was new, what was hot, and what was not, including who was wearing what at Court. It also carried news of what was happening in Paris fashions with some news from Germany and Italy.

In every issue were two hand-colored fashion prints with specific detail so the gowns could be recreated. I imagine some of the seamstresses hated the week it came out. Every fashionable young lady in town must have rushed in with paper in hand. “This! I want to look just like this.”

Well, maybe not just like that.

2 comments:

Cara King said...

The weirdest part of that fashionista quiz is that I got a perfect score too -- and my lack of interest in fashion is only surpassed by my lack of taste. :-)

Though I confess I had to totally guess what "boucle" meant!

Cara

Jessica Burkhart said...

Ooh! Off to try the quiz. :)