History of Fashion Plates

Matthäus Schwarz (19 February 1497 - c.1574) was a German accountant, best known for compiling his Klaidungsbüchlein.png

fig. 1

Parisian bourgeois costume. XVIth century.png

fig. 2

Hollar, 1643.png

fig. 3

Arnoult + Bonnart, 1750.png

fig. 4

p404Journal des Dames et des Modes, 15Sept1808.png

fig. 5

     Early European book illustrations of clothes and tailoring were compiled in 16th c. Trachtenbüchers of German origin. One of the oldest example is an autobiographical picture book hand painted on parchment commissioned by a bookkeeper, Matthäus Schwarz, from Augsburg, Germany and it was compiled over 60 years between 1496-1574 (fig. 1, Schwarz's parents).  In Paris, the Illustrations of the collection of the diversity of the clothes which are presently used as European countries, Asia, Africa and wild islands (1567) (fig. 2) contained intaglio prints of costume plates.  Printed fashion plates attributed to Bohemian artist and engraver Vaclav Hollar (1607 -1677) were published in the Curious book containing the native representation of women's clothes from different parts of the world as they dress now (1643) (fig. 3). This was followed by publications of hand colored fashion prints produced by artists such as the Bonnart family of engravers, which were part of the many volumes of the Recueil de modes (~1750) (fig. 4). Publications like these promoted regional taste and were instrumental in the marketing of the burgeoning textile and clothing industry. The easing of guild restrictions in 1777 saw fashion plates disseminated through a new medium of print ephemera, the Fashion Journal, in the last quarter of the 18th c. Aimed at the female reader, the Journal des Dames et des Modes (fig. 5), with its attractive fashion plates, helped democratise the need for and the acquisition of a stylish wardrobe among the middling class. By the mid 19th c. the widespread availability of fashion plates, often accompanied by full-scaled patterns, further expanded in both the European and American print markets, laying the foundation for photographic fashion prints to proliferate along with women’s magazines in the 20th c., subsequently contributing to the worldwide success of the fashion industry as we know it today.

Reference: 

Ginsberg, Madeleine. An Introduction to Fashion Illustration. London:V & A/Compton/Pitman, 1980.

History of Fashion Plates