| Title | : | Fashion Plates: 150 Years of Style |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0300212267 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780300212266 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 440 |
| Publication | : | First published November 10, 2015 |
Prior to the invention of photography, European and American magazines used colorful prints to depict the latest fashion trends. These illustrations, known as “fashion plates,” conveyed the cutting-edge styles embraced by the fashion-conscious elite and proved inspirational to the upwardly mobile. This lavishly illustrated book provides a comprehensive survey of 200 color plates from publications dating from 1778 to the early 20th century, accompanied by authoritative and fascinating texts. Organized chronologically and featuring both men’s and women’s garments, these lively and colorful vignettes not only are beautiful, but also deftly illustrate the evolution of fashion over time.
Fashion Plates: 150 Years of Style Reviews
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Saw this for sale in Barcelona, but it weighs a ton and there was no way I was lugging it all the way to Australia.
So happy to find it on the Book Depository (with free postage)! -
This is a beautifully produced book in a large format with its own slipcase. The paper used is good quality heavy art paper and the images are beautifully reproduced, though many small sized images have been blown up to a large size to fill the page. The author provides a basic over view of the history of fashion plates but it is not an academic review of fashion plate history. There are already other books published which list the magazines and their fashion plates published from the 18th to 20th centuries The goal of this book is to show the interested reader a selection of fashion plates from 1778 to 1928 and to highlight their artistic beauty.
All the fashion plates illustrated come from the Gladys Marcus library at the Fashion Institute of New York and each illustrated plate is given a fashion background so the reader can understand the social and fashion background it relates to. There are many plates here that have never been reproduced before such as those from Belle Assemblee and some of the mid to late 19th century plates. The selection gives a good overview of how fashion changed in the 150 years they represent. You can also clearly see the later deterioration in the design quality of the plates as the fashion plate started to get supplanted by photography. My biggest disappointment with the selection was that for the years 1778-1787 reproduction plates from the beautiful 1912 Levy reprint of Galerie des modes were used rather than original period plates (this is also true for the Incroyables et mervelleuses plates) and that no plates from the lovely English 'Gallery of Fashion" were were included. This highlights a weakness in trying to use a single collection for a book like this and its the only reason the book hasn't been given 5 stars.
For anyone interested in antique fashion plates I would recommend this book for their library. It has lots of wonderful eye candy and the author has put a lot of work into researching the background for the prints. -
a wonderful collection; the captions don't always explain the images but often instead give more background to the historical context. Definitely a must for anyone interested in costume history, especially 19th century costuming.
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Faaaaaascinating look at the evolution of fashion magazine artwork.
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Absolutely indispensable resource. Gorgeous, well-selected plates are accompanied by interesting anecdotes. My go-to.
