Plates and Mags

To be honest I thought a fashion plate was a lovely plate with a pretty picture on it. Obviously I was wrong, how could I have been so logical! As it turns out a fashion plate is actually an illustration which shows how a garment will look to customers. Needless to say they weren't completed on any ceramic crockery... However, They were often included in the early fashion magazines, which depicted the latest fashion trends. "The Lady's Magazine" was one of the first of these magazines to include fashion plates in a publication. Current examples of fashion plates are often seen as interpretations of garments on sewing patterns

Magazines have developed extensively since "The Lady's Magazine". An early such example is "The Delineator" which was first published in 1873 and included Butterick Patterns for home use and provided an in-depth analysis of current fashion trends. This format of magazines has been a steadfast mould, even for the fashion magazines of today, such as "Harpers Bazaar"(first published in 1867), Vogue (1892), Vanity Fair (1983) and Cosmopolitan (1886). Heres a few examples of some heritage and modern magazine covers...