Fashion and Costume Plates

I mentioned in "Vogue History/Origins of fashion magazine" about Fashion plates, I never really went into what they are or what I meant by fashion plates. So for this article I'm going to explain what fashion plates and costume plates are briefly.

 

(image from community.livejournal.com/lamodeillustree/332462.html)

A Fashion Plate is an illustration of what is currently in fashion, and is used mainly to promote and publish possible future fashions. A Costume Plate illustrates what was once worn in the past.

 

(image from www.fashion-era.com)

Fashion plates first appeared in "The Lady's Magazine" in 1770 and became very popular towards the 19th century. The plates were printed in magazines aimed at women of the time. The illustrations themselves were hand colored by various artists employed by the magazine. The artists were given free range to color them however they wanted, sometimes leading to there being major differences in other copy's of the same magazine.

 

(image from www.fashion-era.com)

British and American fashion magazine's couldn't keep up with the creative flare of the French fashion plates, leading American and British magazine's to start importing copies of the French fashion plates to place into their magazines. This lead to British and American women being six to nine months behind in current fashion trends and styles of the time.

(image from zimmer.csufresno.edu/~monicaf/)

Vogue and the History/Origins of Fashion Magazines

The history and origins of fashion magazines goes back hundreds of years, the very first magazines where created for men by men. The very first female orientated magazine appeared just over 300 years ago in London called “Ladies Mercury”. It was founded by English publisher and journalist John Delton in 1693.

(image from www.bl.uk)

In Delton’s first address to his readers, he openly declared that his magazine will respond to the most appealing and entertaining issues related to love, marriage, behaviors, fashion and women’s humor. It also featured the very first "questions and answers" column, where the reader would send a letter to the editor and discuss everyday problems.

Soon after magazines aimed at women took Europe by storm, with Germany releasing "Gournal des Luxus und des Moden", followed by Britain with "The Lady's Magazine" and "Gallery of Fashion" and France had as many as four fashion magazines. All of them included illustrated fashion plates depicting the latest’s fashions in great detail.

(image from wikipedia.com)

But enough about the past let’s now talk about one fashion magazine that is considered a recent creation: Vogue. Vogue’s very first issue was released in 1892 (119 years ago), and was founded by Arthur Baldwin Turnure. Vogue started as a weekly publication for New York socialites but became a mass-market magazine over time. 

Vogue 1892

(image from thefashioninsider.tumblr.com )

Vogue 1900

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What is a Zine?

(image from www.smh.com.au)

A Zine (pronounce "Zeen") is a small self published mini magazine of original or borrowed text or images.  It is a non-commercial publication reproduced by photocopying, targeting a small minority’s interest. The name itself is an abbreviation of the word fanzine or magazine. Zine’s have been around since the 1970’s, but never became very popular until further into the 1970’s when the punk scene exploded.  

There is even such a thing as an E-Zine, which is very similar to a blog in that they both target a small minority. The main difference between the two is that E-Zines require that you subscribe to view the content, while blog content can be viewed without a subscription.

There have been a few Zine’s that have ended up becoming mainstream commercial publications, such as:

Giant robot

(image from www.giantrobot.com )

Bust

(image from threadtrend.com)

Dazed and confused

(image from www.designscene.net)