Magazine of the Week

This week’s title was given us by the Museum at FIT when they downsized their collection of fashion forecasting materials.

This elegant publication represents an early form of trend reporting and color forecasting. It focuses mainly on Paris couture houses, but includes color, silhouette, and fabric information.

 

It’s an interesting window into a time when Paris couture drove so much of the world wide fashion industry, as you can see by the way the colors are laid out according to the houses which used them.

The plates were also beautifully illustrated, then colored by hand, which our SPARC colleague April wrote about several years ago.

 

 

 

 

 

It’s also interesting that the couture houses used the new synthetic fabrics that were becoming available. One of the swatches on this eveningwear plate is nylon.

 

 

 

 

 

The categories of dress depicted in these plates are very different from those shown in contemporary fashion magazines. Suits and skirt-blouse combinations were considered casual wear. Athletic wear had not become enough of a category yet to warrant designer attention.

 

 

 

 

The closeup gives you a better sense of the texture of the swatches used to illustrate these sketches from Elsa Schiaparelli’s line.

These images are from the Spring 1950 notebook.  I hope they inspire you!