History of Fashion Magazines

Origins of Fashion Magazines
The origin of fashion magazines can be traced back to the late 1400’s when the first fashion plates illustrated by Albrecht Duver were used to record the typical national and regional dress in Nuremburg and Vienna.
Previous to fashion plates, dressed dolls were distributed to potential customers. The peak of fashion plates was the 17th Century. In 1640, Wenceslas Hollar, a polish man working in London produced 2740 fashion plates depicting the fashions of the English working middle class.
In 1794 the Gallerie of Fashion was issued monthly, featuring two hand coloured fashion plates with either gold or silver metallic paint highlights. The most popular and successful fashion plates of the 18th century were, Cabinet des Modes 1785-1789, La Gallerie des Modes 1778 which produced 342 editions. The Lady’s magazine 1770, La Belle Assemblee 1806 which ran for 63 years and The Lady’s Monthly Museum 1798.
Fashion plates died off after the 1900’s, when hand colouring was replaced with colour printing and cromo-lithograph.
Ackermans Repository of arts 1809, also contained articles about furniture and art and was distributed monthly.




Samuel Beeton founded the two most important British fashion magazines of the 19th century.
Mrs Beetons The English Womans Domestic Magazine 1852 and The Queen 1861, which was the longest running English magazine. It featured mainly articles about social events, occupations and literary interests. The Queen ran until 1968 when it was bought out by Harpers Bazaar. The queen in the title was dropped in March 2006.
Vogue magazine was founded in America by Arthur Baldwin Turnure in 1892 as a weekly publication. When he died in 1909 it was taken over by Conde Nast and was changed to a fortnight issue. It spread to Britain in 1910, had little success in Spain, but was hugely successful in France.
In 1973 Vogue became a monthly publication and is now published in 18 countries featuring fashion, life and design. Vogue Turkey was launched in March 2010.
Elle magazine started in 1945 and means “she” in French. It is the worlds largest fashion magazine with 39 international editions in 60 countries with 1.1 million copes distributed each month.

Nothing like a Dame....
“I am traumatised by the problem of climate change” Dame Vivienne Westwood
Dame Vivienne Westwood is aware of the contradiction of being a commercially successful fashion designer, and an environmental activist.
In 2005 she set up a foundation called “Active Resistance” to encourage engagement between art and humanitarian and environmental issues.
“The AR manifesto reveals that in the pursuit of art, the art lover becomes resistant to propaganda. This ethic arms him with a sane outlook on life.”
Recent collections of hers were titled, Propaganda, Active Resistance and Chaos. The Autumn/Winter Paris fashion show February 2009 was called +50, a reference to the temperature increase we will experience when carbon dioxide exceeds acceptable levels in the atmosphere.
In December 2009, Dame Westwood announced she was designing T-shirts for Anvil knitwear to support the efforts of rainforest nations at the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen to stop deforestation. Anvil knitwear is an American fashion company that sells 16 products made from recycled cotton, organic cotton, recycled PET and transitional cotton.

The t-shirts she designed had slogans reading: ACT FAST/SLOW DOWN and Say YES to the Rainforest.
Dame Westwood is Currently designing a capsule collection with Lee Jeans for Autumn/Winter 2010/2011 for her anglomania line.
Dame Vivienne Westwood continues to support the Prince of Wales Rainforest alliance. Attend Climate change summits and challenge company owners like Richard Branson to see how they are changing the way they do business to help combat climate change.

Interview with Lia Parravicini of Fallen Feathers

“I created my label with the desire to re-glamorize the world, breathing new life into vintage design.” Lia Parravicini 2010

Lia is one third of Perth’s premier Burlesque troupe, Sugar Blue. Not only is she a well established performer she also creates beautiful, vintage inspired clothing for her fashion label “Fallen Feathers” which she started in 2007 whilst completing her diploma in Fashion Design and Technology at Swan Tafe Bentley.

The name Fallen Feathers comes from the inspiration for her second year collection at Tafe. She drew inspiration from the Bordello houses of the Moulin Rouge. The fallen being the dark side of the houses, and the feathers coming from her love of the colour palette of the male peacock. Lia used ostrich and peacock feathers to embellish accessories within the range.

Lia’s love of fashion grew at the age of 15 when she started tinkering on her nannas sewing machine, designing and constructing clothes for herself. From there she experimented with patternmaking and learnt from trial and error.

After high school Lia worked for a vintage clothing and costume company here in Perth for five years where she became inspired by the beauty of vintage clothing and design. Especially passionate about the extravagant designs of the 1800’s and 1900’s, it seemed natural she would use these periods to influence her own designs.

Listing Betty Page, Marlene Dietrich, Dita Von Teese and Gwen Stefani as her style icons, Lia says her main inspiration comes from music. She said losing herself in a piece of music and letting the design ideas form is one of her best starting points for a collection.

Lia has a love for all things Vintage, and draws inspiration from circus, burlesque and the twisted concepts of Alice in Wonderland which she based her diploma collection around. She describes her design aesthetic as being strange, beautiful vintage inspirations, designed for a world of modern madness!

Lia is currently designing for several companies, a range of ready to wear pin-up clothing and is working on three different made to measure burlesque costumes for Sugar Blue. She uses lots of Chinchilla and ostrich feathers for her couture costume range and would like to use more silks but for the moment is using silk satins for the pinup ready to wear range.

Fallen Feathers is promoted through various websites including Lia’s own, the sugar blue burlesque website, photography websites, and online shopping stores. Lia has business cards in various shops in which shop assistants wear her label, and she has had her collections modelled in various parades, film clips and a range of garments are currently being used to promote a new venue in Seminyak Bali.

The Fallen feathers range can be found online at fallenfeathers.com.au and esty.com.au
In store at :Redstripe clothing Northbridge and at “Ruperts of Subiaco.
Prices range from 15.00-$100.00 for accessories, $45.00-$400.00 for ready to wear. Lia also does made to measure couture. Prices depend on the complexity of the design.

Strange, beautiful vintage inspirations, designed for a world of modern madness!

Images from David Wooley photography @ sugarblueburlesque.com and vintageglamourphotography.com