J. L. Nevinson

“ As the reading public grew, so fashion consciousness increased, and magazines, wholly or partly devoted to fashions, flourished and were widely read in the middle social classes; this growth of fashion periodicals also is briefly described here.
The Author: John L. Nevinson, retired, was formerly with The Victoria and Albert Museum, London. He now devotes himself to full-time research on costumes and their history.
Fashion may be defined as a general style of dress appropriate for a particular person to wear at a certain time of day, on a special occasion, or for a specific purpose. ”

“ The history of fashion plates, therefore, is to be followed in less specialized works. In the 16th century, with the improvement of communications and the continuation of voyages of discovery, great interest developed in the costume and way of life of other nations. ”

“ The Mercure Galant, strangely neglected by costume historians, occupies a most important place in the history of fashion literature, since it is the first and for almost a century the only periodical to contain regular articles on contemporary fashion. ”

“ This paper, based on a lecture given in the fall of 1963 at the Metropolitan Museum, New York, traces the history of the fashion plate from its origins to its full development in the 19th century. With the improvements in transportation and communication, increased attention came to be paid to foreign fashions, accessories, and even to hairstyles. ”

“ Von Herberstein seems to have kept his robes in his palace in Vienna, along with his collection of Russian and oriental weapons, illustrated in his history of Russia:10 these, and stuffed specimens of Aurochs, then almost extinct, and European bison, formed the first museum of costume and natural history on record.
With the development of ceremonial, some of the princely courts of Germany had illustrations prepared of what should be worn by the officials of different grades (fig. 5) . ”

“ Mr. Holland has studied them from the artistic angle, tracing many of the French artists, who did not scorn fashion work. The relation of fashion plates to Victorian dresses as worn has been touched on by many costume writers,47 but the relation of the fashion plate to the fashion house has yet to be studied; in particular, the large sheets put out by wholesale drapers and textile manufacturers and the advertisements of ready-made clothing that appear in magazines all through the 19th century have not yet been studied to full advantage.
[90]
Figure 34.—Philadelphia fashions. ”

“ Some use can be made of the engravings after Marcellus Laroon, which were first sold separately and later published in 1711 as the Cryes of London,36 to illustrate costume in England, but neither these nor the illustrations of English men and women which appear in general works on the costume of Europe can be accepted as fashion plates. Other series, such as the plates on the dress of Augsburg engraved by Jeremias Wolff, belong more to the history of costume than to the history of fashion. ”

“ Jacques and elsewhere, which commissioned not only Lepautre, who had worked for the Mercure Galant, but the Bonnarts, Jean de St. Jean, Arnoult, and other competent artists to produce large engravings of contemporary personalities. These for the most part depicted members of the French royal family and court circle, actors and actresses, and other well-known characters, not always named on the print. A “Man of Quality” (fig. 25) is almost certainly a portrait, which, when suitably colored as many of the prints were, could be pinned up or framed for decorative effect. ”

“ Interest in fashionable dress goes back at least to the 16th century, as is evidenced by a popular dialogue written by Alessandro Piccolomini, a relative of Pope Pius II, who subsequently became coadjutor Archbishop of Siena.2 Piccolomini wrote under the pseudonym “Lo Stordito,” and it is not clear to what extent the dialogue was sponsored by the Academy of the Intronati, an aristocratic, literary, and social society of which he was a member. ”

“ The still-existing Mercure de France, direct successor of the Mercure Galant, carried an occasional fashion article with engravings of dress accessories. In March 1729 (fig. 27) , there is a not-very-well-defined sketch of a lady with her page, meeting a gentleman. The accompanying paragraphs are not valuable but contain a recommendation for “garnitures” to be had from La Demoiselle Perronet, in the Cour Abbatial of St. Germain des Pres. As for “coeffures et têtes . . . on les coeffe sur une poupée.”
[86]
Figure 27.—Fashion plate depicting a lady with her page being saluted by a gentleman. ”

“ The beginning of the illustration of fashions is found in portraits, the earliest of which, either sculptured or painted, developed from images of kings and important personages.3 These images, unlike the imagines of the Romans, made no attempt to portray the features of an individual, but made his identity known rather by his clothes, his arms, and other indications of rank or position. ”

“ Figure 31.—Print of a lady in a court dress ballooned out by side hoops, by N. Heideloff. The print does not attribute this fashion to any specific year. From the Gallery of Fashion, 1798. (Courtesy of Victoria & Albert Museum, London.)
It is not proposed to give an account here of the various magazines in the different countries which contained illustrated articles on fashion from 1770 onward, since this would merely repeat material in Mr. Vyvyan Holland’s book. Mention should be made, however, of the movements for dress reform motivated either by economic considerations or national feeling. ”

“ This dress was far more sumptuous than the formal black velvet gown which he normally wore for embassies to the Spanish and other courts.
Figure 3.—Dress of Sigmund von Herberstein for an embassy to the Sultan, 1541. The short gown (Schaube) of Italian brocade figured with black and gold has wide shoulders and padded upper sleeves. The collar, lining, and foresleeves are of similar fabric but with a dark violet ground for contrast. From Gratae Posteritati, 1560. (Courtesy of British Museum, London.)
By 1541 there was a change in fashion (fig. 3) . ”

“ In the same way in London in 1794, Nicolaus Heideloff, whose Gallery of Fashion was an imitation of one of the French series by Esnaut and Rapilly entitled La Gallerie des Modes, though claiming that the dresses he described were real ones, seems to have 88 had as an objective the formation of a sort of picture gallery of costume portraits of English ladies. ”

“ This type of petticoat was popular in Spain in the late 15th 73 century,19 but was not adopted in France, Italy, and England until the second half of the 16th century.
Figure 8.—Dress of a French woman (back view) showing the manner in which the bodice was laced and the hood fell at the back. The skirt is raised, revealing the farthingale petticoat with the roll at its hem which contained cane stiffening (verdugo) . From Omnium gentium habitus . . . , 1563 ed. (Courtesy of Victoria & Albert Museum, London.) ”

“ Luttrell Society, 1951) , no. 11.
31 E. S. de Beer, “King Charles II’s own fashion,” Warburg Institute Journal (1935) , vol. 2, no. 2, p. 105.
32 Translated, this reads: “. . . nothing is more pleasing than the styles born in France . . . . This is why much relating to dress is imported from France into all the provinces of the world, though the final dress is not exactly French.”
33 Emile Magne, Images de Paris sous Louis XIV (1939) . In this book, the social historian Dr. Magne devotes the best part of a chapter to the Mercure Galant and gives a listing of all fashion articles up to 1700. ”

“ Notes on 16th century dress,” Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für historische Waffen- und Kostum-Kunde (1959) , new ser. 1, p. 86.
9 Sigmund von Herberstein, Gratae Posteritati . . . (Vienna, 1560) .
10 Sigmund von Herberstein, Rerum Moscoviticarum Commentarii, expanded ed. (Basel: Oporinus, 1556) . ”