Fashion – Page 2 – Old Magazine Articles

Poiret Wraps and Coats
(Vogue Magazine, 1919)

By the time these images in American VOGUE hit the streets, the fashion house of Paul Poiret (1879 – 1944) was very much on the decline. Following the close of the First World War the designer was never able to regain his pre-1914 status. With the restlessness of the Twenties came the demand for a new mood in fashion and Coco Channel (1883 – 1971) became the new champion of Paris Fashion. Poiret closed his doors ten years after these photos were printed.

Read about the 1943 crochet revival

Paris Fashion, 1913
(Vanity Fair Magazine, 1913)

The unknown author of this article believed deeply that the Paris fashions of 1913 were very much in keeping with the grand traditions established and maintained by that city since the eighteenth century. This critic was very impressed with the recent work of Paul Poiret and Doeuillet and presented a number fashion illustrations to prove the point. Oddly, the article is credited simply to Worth which leaves one wondering whether the writer was one of the sons of Charles Frederick Worth (1825-1895); Jean Philippe Worth or Gaston Worth, both of whom had inherited their father’s great house of fashion.

P.G. Wodehouse on the Virtues and Vices of Artists
(Vanity Fair Magazine, 1916)

Written under the pen name P. Brooke-Haven, this very funny essay was in fact written by Vanity Fair’s drama critic, P.G. Wodehouse, who attempted to understand the criminal nature of artists.

The Life-Saving Capabilities of Victorian Fashion
(Coronet Magazine, 1960)

Many and myriad are the scholars who toil over this website daily, but not one of these over-paid and under-worked nerds were able to recall a single instance during the American Civil War in which ladies’ fashions served to benefit any of the combatants – until this article was found.

A VOGUE MAGAZINE article about Washington etiquette can be read here…

Hats from the Spring of 1925
(The Delineator, 1925)

Tenderly ripped from a copy of Delineator Magazine was this one page that featured nine chic illustrations of the fashionable hats for the Spring of 1925.

The small hat trimmed on top with an artichoke bow, pom-poms, gardenias, roses, water lilies, violets or quills is very popular…Hats for general wear remain head-size. The large hat is seen occasionally with afternoon gowns and will be worn with more formal Summer frocks.

Click here to see a beautifully photographed article about the fashionable hats of 1947.

Group therapy for weight loss celebrates its 60th year…

Paris Puts a Stick in the Mode…(Vogue Magazine, 1919)

Fashion, like all empires, has it’s slaves. The slaves are treated cruelly but, strangely, they never seem to mind; they do what ever is required of them. Many are the examples of fashion’s tyranny: in the past it has demanded that it’s slaves wear cowboy boots, although none could rope a steer, and it has demanded of it’s slaves that they wear uniforms, although none could fight. In fashion’s name the slaves have removed ribs and teeth, reduced or enlarged body parts, dyed hair cross-dressed and tattooed themselves like jail-birds. The slaves do it all and there seems to be no limit to fashion’s fickle whims that will ever make them say, no.

To illustrate this point, you can read this beautifully illustrated Vogue magazine article from 1919 in which the beast demands perfectly healthy young women to walk with canes.

New York Fashions for Spring
(Strauss Magazine Theatre Program, 1916)

Before it was called Playbill it was called the Strauss Magazine Theatre Program and Cora Moore was their fashion critic. During the early spring of 1916 Mrs. Moore took a serious look at the fashion parade on Fifth Avenue and recognized that much of it had been seen before. She offered no thoughts as to why so much from the past was being borrowed but she liked it just fine nonetheless.

New York Fashions for Spring
(Strauss Magazine Theatre Program, 1916)

The Four Social Zones of Fifth Avenue
(Vanity Fair Magazine, 1922)

This cartoon was drawn by the artist Reginald Marsh (1898 – 1954), who had a swell time comparing and contrasting the bio-diversity along 1922 Fifth Avenue; from the free-verse poets on Eighth Avenue up to the narrow-nosed society swanks on Sixty-Eighth Street -and everyone else in between.

Shoe Illustrations
(1913 Advertisement)

Heartlessly ripped from the binding of an ancient issue of VANITY FAIR was this page of shoe illustrations in which a smart pair of womens leather boots are the centerpiece, accompanied by Russian dancing shoes, a splendid pair of gold brocade slippers, white buckskin tennis oxfords and a pair of walking boots.

Legendary fashion designer Christian Dior had a good deal of trouble with people who would illegally copy his designs; click here to read about that part of fashion history.

1920s Prohibition created a criminal climate
that appealed to more women than you ever might have suspected…

Hats Having Modernist Tendencies
(Vanity Fair Magazine, 1921)

The fashion editors who presided over the very young VANITY FAIR MAGAZINE made an effort to keep pace with the dramatic changes taking place in the design of ladies hats and wraps for 1921. The attached article is a case in point.

Paris Hats by Marie Louise, Lucie Hamar and Lanvin
(Harper’s Bazaar, 1918)

Six fashion illustrations concerning the autumn hats of 1918:

Paris is exceedingly critical in regard to hats even in wartime, and the new ones are most interesting. Black velvet of course is rampant, and Marie Louise especially is using much much black panne velvet…