Fashion magazine

“ It is true that there are novels that almost do away with the necessity of fashion magazines and fashion plates in the family, so faithful are they in the latest millinery details, and so fully do they satisfy the longing of all of us to know what is chic for the moment. It is pretty well understood, also, that women, and even men, are made to exhibit the deepest passions and the tenderest emotions in the crises of their lives by the clothes they put on. How the woman in such a crisis hesitates before her wardrobe, and at last chooses just what will express her innermost feeling! ”

“ But the great artists seldom adhere to the passing fashions; they arrange the dress or reconstruct it so that it shall be most becoming to their sitters and at the same time make a good composition of colour and form for their pictures. This is also done by ladies of taste, who will often turn some freak of fashion into a thing of beauty, and, regardless of their milliner and dressmaker, will adopt some modification of the passing style if it seems to them more suitable and becoming. ”

“ The styles we wear to-day are the derision even of the current journals, and what will be thought of them fifty years hence, when the fashion magazines show me as I look,—the envy of my moment, the fright of my grandchildren? ”

“ These sketches appear with the present article.
Fashion in dress, according to the twentieth century author, notwithstanding its apparent caprice, has always been governed by immutable laws. But these laws were not recognised in the benighted epoch in which we happen to live at present. On the contrary, Fashion is thought a whim, a sort of shuttlecock for the weak-minded of both sexes to make rise and fall, bound and rebound with the battledore called—social influence. But it will interest a great many people to learn that Fashion assumed the dignity of a science in 1940. ”

“ If their clothes set better than you thought they would, why, you must remember that they subscribe for the very same fashion magazines that you do, and there is such a thing as a mail-order business in this country, even if you aren't aware of it. ”

“ Our magazines are radiant with fashion plates illustrating the latest styles; our newspapers abound with allusions and discussions bearing upon the subject, as though it were a matter of national concernment; and it is continually the theme of conversation and a subject either of praise or satire wherever men and women meet together. It would be fortunate, indeed, if this discussion should result in securing a reform in all those styles and modes of woman’s dress which are incompatible with good health, refined taste, simplicity, economy and beauty ”

“ We all know that the love of beauty is inherent in all women—just as the pride of personal appearance is inherent in all men. It is a heritage brought down through generations of slowly developing culture. And we find to-day that Fashion is the means of expressing individuality.
It would indeed be a Herculean task to attempt to write a discourse on the ever-changing dictates of Fashion, on the constant whims and vagaries of Style. Each season brings forth striking new dress innovations—new colorings, new draperies, new lines. ”

“ Is it to show their entire contempt for the principles of design that our manufacturers introduced last year not only horizontal stripes of conspicuous colors, but checks and plaids of immense size, as autumnal fashions for dress fabrics? We had hoped that the ladies would show the correctness of their taste by their disapproval of these unbecoming designs, but the prevalence of the fashion at the present time is another evidence of the triumph of fashion over good taste. ”

“ Just the fact that a dress is the latest mode—that last word in fashion—is no guarantee that it is the stylish selection for every woman.
It is well to keep in mind that every season brings a few extremes along with many charming wearable clothes.
There is the matter of dollars and cents, too. It is another place where it is easy to lose the true value of style. Expensive is not a synonym for stylish. It’s line and cut and becomingness that counts everytime. There is no truer saying in the world that clothes are more often overdone than underdone. ”

“ Where is the woman who does not know the leading materials for coats and dresses? She may live far from the great commercial centres, 2but her women’s magazine, published in New York, Philadelphia or Chicago, brings her descriptions by an expert, with colored, photographic reproductions, of the fashionable novelties. As for the experienced city shopper, if she were tested with her eyes shut, simply by touching the fabric she could identify it in most cases and could readily distinguish between goods of fine and inferior quality. ”

“ Fashion is a temptress. Smart gowns, exquisite hat creations, attractive styles in bootery, all tempt us to spend more than is really quite necessary. The extravagant woman fills her wardrobe with numerous dresses, blouses and hats for which she has no real use. But how much more sensible it is to have just enough for one's needs, a few stylish, well-made garments—each one an expression of the wearer's own personality.
There seems to be a false impression among men and women alike, that to be fashionable one must have a new dress for every occasion, a different suit for every day of the week. ”

“ Year by year the modes are deliberately altered by a conclave of the great modistes whose desire is less to produce rich or beautiful garments than to make that radical alteration from loose sleeve to tight sleeve, from draped skirt to plain skirt, which will force every women to cast aside the last season’s garments and buy those of the newer device. But of modern dress it may at least be said that cheaper materials, the sewing machine and the popular fashion papers allow women of the humbler classes to dress more decently and tastefully. ”

“ We have often been told, and by those whose business it is to know such things, that the models created by great Paris dressmakers are not always flashes of genius which come in the night, nor the wilful perversion of an existing fashion, to force the world of women into discarding, and buying everything new. ”

“ It certainly cannot be pretended that these women adopted that dress from a love of novelty, or a desire to lead a new fashion, or from any other reason than a sense of its convenience, founded on experience. ”

“ The press handed the matter about and commented on this new departure from fashion's sway, until the whole country was excited over it, and Mrs. Bloomer was overwhelmed with letters of inquiry from women concerning the dress. All felt the need of some reform that should lift the burden of clothes from their wearied bodies. Though many adopted the style for a time, yet under the rod of tyrant fashion and the ridicule of the press they soon laid it aside. ”

“ The best artists design them, and the only fault to be found is this, that as they are made by thousands of yards, and can only be varied by interchange of colours, they become common the day they are produced. It has been said that “fashion is made for a class, but taste for mankind.” [478] Fashion is the enemy of taste, though she makes use of her services. The gown, of which the fashion is in every sense imported from France, will probably never again be the vehicle for home embroideries. ”

“ If these are observed, there is still a wide margin left for fancy and fashion. These may find scope in trimmings and embroidery; the application of which, however, must also be regulated by good taste and knowledge. The physical variety in the human race is infinite; so are the gradations and combinations of color; yet we expect a few forms of dress to suit every age and complexion! Instead of the beautiful, the graceful, and the becoming, what are the attractions offered by the dress makers? What are the terms used to invite the notice of customers? Novelty and distinction. ”

“ Seeing our friend’s grave face, we asked her what she was thinking of, and she replied, “I am thinking of the men who wove that silk to be trodden on, and the girls who sewed those beads to be smashed. Poor things! I would rather be the grimiest maid-of-all-work toiling for real human needs, or the roughest tailor or cobbler, working to cover honest human nakedness.”
Let all dress, therefore, always be as durable as can be, both in material and mode. As to “fashion,” even that has a root of necessity and common sense, because dress must change as social habits and customs change. ”

“ Its vogue will be precisely proportioned to the merit the popular taste recognizes in it, just as if it were an invention in mechanics. If a new idea in dress has any merit in it, it is taken up with great promptness, for our people are extremely interested in enhancing personal beauty by costume, and the absence of any arbitrary standards of style such as fashion set for you leaves us on the alert for attractions and novelties in shape and color. It is in variety of effect that our mode of dressing seems indeed to differ most from yours. ”

“ The ready-to-wear clothes in the Misses' Department are growing every year better looking; unfortunately and for some inexplicable reason, the usual Women's Department does not compare in good taste in selection of models with the former, and it is unusual to find a dress that a lady of fashion would choose except among the imported models, for which store prices are as a rule higher than those asked by the greatest dressmakers. ”

“ In some measure, but for the most part you dress as you do because society puts fashion pictures into your heads. You ladies dress as you do because these fashion plates and the women you see upon the street leave a deposit in your mind, a composite picture, and that composite picture works itself out in your own charming and becoming wardrobe. ”

“ Leading papers publish illustrated supplements devoted exclusively to the subject of attire, thus carrying temptation into every humble home, and suggesting unattainable luxuries. Windows in many of the larger shops contain life-sized manikins loaded with the latest costly and ephemeral caprices of fashion arranged to catch the eye of the poorer class of women, who stand in hundreds gazing at the display like larks attracted by a mirror! Watch those women as they turn away, and listen to their sighs of discontent and envy. ”

“ To obtain a dress, which to them is most unbecoming, or an article of furniture wholly unsuited to themselves and their establishment.
My own idea, and I believe it is founded upon a long-cherished, and perhaps too ardent admiration of personal beauty, is, that fashion ought to favour all which is most becoming. It is true, we should at first be greatly at a loss to know what was becoming, because we should have the power and the prejudice of fashion to contend with ”

“ All women of fashion bought clothes when it would not have occurred to them to buy furniture—when it would have seemed preposterous to buy a piece of jewelry—but clothes, clothes, and more clothes, each more hand-embroidered than the last, until just as it seemed that no dress was fit to be seen if it hadn't a month or two of some one's time embroidered on it, the work on clothes subsided, until now we are at the other extreme ”

“ If professors would stop and consider the character of women who invent popular fashions of the age they might well blush with shame at their eager attempts to follow the modern styles of dress invented by the wicked leaders of fashion in London and Paris, whence the latest styles of this country generally emanate. ”

“ The main functions of fashionable dress are to draw attention to the wearer, to define his social position, and to show who he is and what he is doing. Modesty, protection against the weather, and appeal to the opposite sex, are, so far as fashion is concerned, subsidiary functions. ”

“ Fashion is not measured by the number of suits or dresses we have, but by the good taste we display in their selection.
It is significant that the woman whose wardrobe is filled to overflowing, invariably finds that she has "nothing to wear," while the woman of taste, with her carefully selected wardrobe, always seems to be dressed just right. ”

“ In a word, let each woman dress herself and her household as her judgment, skill, and taste shall dictate, without everlastingly consulting the last fashion-plate. It would be better that every one was dressed differently from all others, than as now, all rigged up to order by the last nuncio from Paris. In nature, variety spreads a curious interest over all her vestiture. In the human world, Fashion clothes all in a tiresome sameness. To say the least, a very great improvement might be made by a little more freedom and courage, and exercise of individual judgment and taste. ”

“ 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 frequent changes in style bring rich returns to the manufacturers of clothing and call for a ceaseless outgo by people who feel that they are obliged to follow the dictates of fashion. “I hate rich people,” said a little shop-girl. “For every time I see a woman wearing a fine dress I cannot help thinking how hard I work and how useless the dress is for any practical purpose.”
Dressmaking in the Home. Dressmaking was at one time carried on entirely within the family. ”

“ The fine lady who frequents the Court, as well as the servant-girl who sweeps out the area of a London lodging-house, and all the intermediate classes, are guided by Fashion. Crinolines and bonnets prove this, as well as the length of the skirts which are suffered to trail along in all the dirt and dust of pavement and crossings. It always takes some time before a fashion which has been adopted by the higher orders prevails among the lower; but, if it is a fashion which survives beyond the moment, it invariably finds its way downward in the course of time. ”