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.