Fashion Discourses in Fashion Magazines and Delphine de Girardin’s Lettres Parisiennes

Abstract

This chapter discusses the feminization of consumption, the role of publicity, and conceptions of fashion in the 1830s and 40s, seen mainly through two sets of sources: fashion magazines the Petit Courrier des dames (1821–1865), Les Modes parisiennes (1843–1880), and Le Moniteur de la mode (1843–1919), and the collection of Delphine de Girardin’s “A Letter from Paris” newspaper columns, Lettres parisiennes (1836–1848). Fashion magazines, and fashion in general, of this period have received limited scholarly attention, and the relationship between fashion magazines and consumer culture remains relatively unexplored.¹ This chapter emphasizes the commercial context of fashion magazines, highlighting the importance of publicity and advertising in the magazines. It argues that articles on shops, fashion houses and advertising, which initially formed a minor content of the magazines, became the dominant content by the mid-1840s. It also argues that while the high society—élégantes or mondaines—remained an important source of fashion trends, fabric manufacturers, fashion houses, shops, and dressmakers, aiming at the middle class, exerted a powerful influence on fashion.