As Seen in Vogue: A Century of American Fashion in Advertising

Description

This lavishly illustrated chronicle of American women’s fashions examines relationships between the mass-market ready-to-wear industry, fashion journalism, and fashion advertising. Throughout the twentieth century, these industries fueled one another’s successes by identifying an ever-widening consumer class and fanning the desire to be fashionable. Daniel Hill employs a wealth of primary source material to document not only this symbiosis but also an evolution in American fashion, society, and culture, as evidenced by more than six hundred fashion ads that appeared in Vogue from the magazine’s debut in 1893 through the next ten decades. These American vignettes document more than the looks and fashions of their eras; they reveal dramatic transformations in women’s roles and self-image—witness the metamorphosis from alabaster Victorian homemaker to painted flapper in just a generation, from conformist fifties mom to miniskirt-clad iconoclast only a decade later. In this comprehensive study, Hill offers a fathomless trove for fashion historians and pop-culturists, an invaluable resource for students and professionals in advertising, marketing, and business history, and a niche perspective on cultural influences for women’s studies.