A Treasure of Fashion
March 1912
July 1912
September 1912Inner pages - August 1913
I recently went for a short walk to my local charity shop to browse through their collection of books. Treading softly across the carpeted floor, I walked towards the back of the shop, where the older, collectable books were situated. Kneeling down to browse through the lower shelves, I turned my head to the side. I silently read the print on the tattered spines, with the aged paper stretched over wood, cracked and matured like the very bark of the trees they had come from, or else leathers long dried and sun baked.
My eyes stopped on a beautifully bound dark red leather portfolio, the spine of which, bore remnants of a peeling golden print, forming pieces of a puzzle no longer complete. I gently slide out the portfolio from in between two tattered books, and ran my fingers slowly across the leather binding, feeling all of the small bumps and cuts. It was as if the book was a living creature and I could feel its very warmth emanating.
As I opened the stiff cover, the musty smell of aged paper and ink washed over me in a sudden wave. The thin browned pages were covered in an irregular type, proclaiming a Parisian book binder upon its incipit. I lightly peeled the pages back, afraid of bruising the powdery leaves. My careful attempts were rewarded by a beautiful single page print of the cover of a long forgotten fashion publication.
Reading the script across the top of a stunning hand illustration, I saw the title of La Mode Pratique, The Practical Fashion. As I proceeded to look through the portfolio, I realised with astonishment that it was in actuality a rebinding of a personal collection of copies. Contained within the beautiful deep red cover were several issues of the fashion magazine, long out of print, dating from the early 1900s.
I began to wonder about the various fashion publications which have gone out of print over the decades and centuries, only to be forgotten by the next generation. I felt like I had come across a treasure long lost. It was as if I had stumbled, quite accidentally, over an Egyptian crypt, yet rather than containing golds and a sarcophagus, there was a veritable trove of fashion history.
The foreign print and beautiful hand illustrations took my surprise, and I was left in pure amazement. Unfortunately the portfolio was out of my price range, however simply being able to browse through it felt like a rare privilege, and I left feeling excited and curious as to the magazine's fate. I decided to look through the internet for some images from the publication, purely to share the unexpected wonder and amazement that I felt.
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