Skip to main content

The amazing history of fashion plates.

Fashion plates are a classic, even stereotypical angle image from the Victorian era, featuring duos and trios of women modeling the latest looks circa 1877. But how did consumers of the time actually use these images? What did you actually do with a fashion plate, anyway? 
 Recently released in lavish paperback, Fashion Plates: 150 Years of Style is a beautiful chronicle of the form in its heyday. It’s the work of April Calahan, a fashion historian who works in special collections at New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology, whose holdings the book draws from. (Calahan explained they’ve got around 500 linear feet of materials, about 400 rare periodicals, and something like half a million original designer sketches.)

Calahan opted for a vignette approach, rather than a straight-through history of the form sprinkled with illustrations. Each time you turn the page, you’re presented with a specific plate and bit of specific explanation or broader context. (Or both!) “I wanted it to flesh out all these other things that were happening at the same time, because without that context—a lot of people always feel that fashion is frivolous or unnecessary, but it’s really this thing that is at the core and woven into the fabric of our society,” she explained.
She walked me through a brief history of the fashion plate, how it arose and became so ubiquitous, which turns out to provide a nice window on the history of fashion itself.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The fascinating history of ear piercing.

Men and women alike have been piercing their ears for cosmetic and ritualistic purposes since time immemorial. When did people first start piercing their ears? What reasons have different cultures had for engaging in the ancient practice of ear piercing? How is it that ear piercings have remained one of the most popular types of body piercings throughout time? What types of ear piercings can you get today? We answer these questions and more in this  History of Ear Piercings . Read Article:   https://info.painfulpleasures.com/help-center/information-center/history-ear-piercings
Post a Comment
Read more

THE HISTORY OF HAUTE COUTURE

From humble beginnings to present day, we chart the history of  haute couture . 1858 : English couturier, Charles Frederick Worth established the first haute couture house in Paris, championing exclusive luxury fashion for the upper-class woman and coining the term ‘fashion designer’ – an artist in lieu of the basic dressmaker. 1868 : Le Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture was first established as the safeguard of high-fashion. Designers were required to earn the right to label themselves a couture house according to certain specifications. These were later outlined in 1945. 1908:  The phrase “haute couture” was used for the first time. Read Article:   http://www.harpersbazaar.co.uk/fashion/fashion-news/news/a31123/the-history-of-haute-couture/
Post a Comment
Read more

An interesting article about the history of American fashion in the 20th century.

The Roaring 20s The end of World War I brought a new sense of freedom and independence to women in the United States. It was during this decade that the “flapper” emerged, a new type of young American woman whose clothing screamed modernity. Prior to the 1920s, American women aimed to look older than their actual age, but with the implementation of the 19th Amendment in 1919, guaranteeing women’s suffrage, women began to strive to look younger and younger. Women began to wear looser fitting garments while hemlines rose to an unprecedented knee-length level, abandoning the more restricting and uncomfortable fashions of the preceding decades. American women of the 1920s often “bobbed”, or cut, their hair short to fit under the iconic cloche, a snug-fit hat made of felt that was worn tilted in order to cover the forehead and, at times, the ears. The flapper style dress and cloche hat were often worn together, particularly during the latter half of the decade. Read Entire Article:  
Post a Comment
Read more