Fashion Plates Design Set

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The Metropolitan Museum of Art. “Women 1921-1940, Plate 002.” Gift of Woodman Thompson. https://libmma.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p15324coll12/id/10980 One of her subsequent accomplishments, however, was the completion of a book entitled "History of Costume", a college textbook describing the evolution of fashion from 3000 B.C. to 1900. Published in 1965, it contains detailed descriptions of historical and cultural fashion along with renditions of small-scale garment patterns that she meticulously drafted from various museum collections. To research her book, she spent two years avidly collecting illustrations: photographs, postcards, art prints, and fashion plates. Her book is still considered today a foremost resource in the study of costume history. It reflects her teaching philosophy that the study of original artifacts is of essential importance in the understanding of good design. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. “Les modes,1917-1918.” https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/821934 The Culture of Clothing: Dress and Fashion in the Ancien Régime." Translated by Jean Birrell. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989, p. 476 Costume is interesting because it is splendid, ridiculous, useful, pompous, dignified, sombre, gay, fantastic – because, in short, it is human.

Suffrage and other banners represent London’s role as a centre for the fashion and clothing industry, from education through to design, production, promotion, retail and wear. As technology improved, speed of communication and transportation increased, thus allowing consumers access to foreign fashions, accessories and hairstyles. The introduction of an educated middle class also allowed for a more fashion-conscious population that became devoted to fashion plate publications. Until the 1820s, fashion plate engravings were made on copper printing plates, which limited the number of prints that could be taken due to the softness of the metal. [6] Fashion plate, Godey's Lady's Book, January 1837 The malleability of copper meant that these plates could only produce a limited amount of images. The combination of hand-coloring and the limited number of plates being produced meant that these fashion plates were costly and were typically reserved for members of the aristocracy and the wealthy bourgeoisie class. Screenprint with offset lithography, hand colouring and collage 29 1/2 × 25 5/8 (749 × 650) on paper 39 × 27 1/4 (990 × 692) watermarked ‘FABRIANO’, offset lithography printed by Sergio and Fausta Tosi, Milan, screenprinting by Chris Prater at Kelpra Studio, published by Petersburg Press in an edition of 70In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Tomy revived the concept as a toy marketed simply as Fashion Plates. [13] [14] [15] Fashion plates v. costume plates [ edit ] The publishing boom of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries stimulated the flow of fashion illustrations. Despite the Revolution and the Napoleonic wars, French plates continued to dominate the market, though equally fine examples were produced in England and Germany. Le Brun Tossa in the Le Cabinet des Modes, 1785-1789, and La Mésangère in Le Journal des Dames et des Modes, 1797-1839, featured high-quality plates by excellent artists, as did John Bell in the English La Belle Assemblée 1806-1832, but Bell's illustrations were often pirated and adapted to local taste. Created by the French, fashion plates are images depicting women, and sometimes men, dressed in the latest styles and trends. Even after the advent of photography in the 1830s, fashion plates disseminated the most current fashion trends and provided a reference that instructed their dressmaker how to construct or alter a garment in the latest style. Those who made these illustrations used copper and steel engravings, hence the name “fashion plate.”

The most prestigious early nineteenth-century British contribution to the art of the fashion plate was Heideloff's Gallery of Fashion, 30 aquatint plates, 1797-1801, published by subscription to an aristocratic clientele. Focused on fashions worn by anonymous noble ladies, it also included the creations of named dressmakers. With the aquatint plates of British popular venues crowded with fashionable men, women, and children, published by London tailor Benjamin Read between the 1820s and 1840s, the fashion plate was decisively democratized. Prints and full-scale patterns were sold through Read's establishments in London and New York, where American versions soon appeared. The increasing popularity of photography in the early 20th century spelled the end for fashion plates, as photos offered a realistic portrayal of fashionable styles. [4] [12]Calahan, April and, Karen Trivette Cannell, ed. Fashion Plates: 150 Years of Style. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015).