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"La Gazette du Bon Ton: Arts, Modes, and Frivolites": An analysis of fashion and modernity through the lens of a French journal de luxe
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"La Gazette du Bon Ton: Arts, Modes, and Frivolites": An analysis of fashion and modernity through the lens of a French journal de luxe
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LA GAZETTE DU BON TON: ARTS, MODES, AND FRIVOLITES:
AN ANALYSIS OF FASHION AND MODERNITY THROUGH THE LENS OF A
FRENCH JOURNAL DE LUXE.
Copyright 1999
by
Linda Kathryn Pilgrim
A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS
(Art History)
August 1999
Linda Kathryn Pilgrim
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UMI Number: 1409654
___ ®
UMI
UMI Microform 1409654
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All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against
unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code.
ProQuest Information and Learning Company
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UNIVERSITY O F S O U T H E R N CA LIFO RN IA
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and approved by all its members, has been pre~
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Graduate School, in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
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Contents
Introduction
Chapter One La Gazette du Bon Ton “The Best of a Very Good Bunch”
Fashion Illustration
Other Journals de Luxe
Articles
Pochoir
Chapter Two A Marketing Strategy
Poiret’s Model
Consumption and Desire
Class
Chapter Three “Modern” Audiences
Grand Bourgeoisie
Prostitutes and Dandies
Chapter Four “ Bon Ton”
Conclusion
Sources Consulted
18
23
28
31
33
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Introduction
1
From 1912 to 192S, a de luxe French fashion journal, La Gazette du Bon Ton: Arts, Modes, and
Frivolitis, was published in Paris and New York. Conceived and edited by Lucien Vogel,1 the publication
experienced its heyday at the outset—the two years immediately proceeding France’s entanglement in the
Great War—from 1912 to 1914. For each issue, Vogel employed designers and artists, including Georges
Lepope, Paul Iribe, Charles Martin, Bernard Boutet de Mouvel, Andrg Marty, and Georges Barbier, to
illustrate haute couture from the top fashion houses in Paris. They utilized a fifteenth-century printing
technique revived in France during the 1910s called pochoir While a laborious and expensive process, it
enabled the reproduction of the illustrations in bold, vivid colors very different from the monotone results
of lithography or photography, also used in magazine printing at the time. Writers also contributed,
supplying articles on various trends in shoes, umbrellas, home accessories, lamps, vacation spots, and
sports. Reviews of the theater and the opera regularly appeared. The articles were light, flufly and
"frivolous," as the sub-title suggested.
Original issues can be found today in some special collections and museum libraries.2 These are
precious objects now, but La Gazette was also valuable at the time of its publication when it could have
been acquired only by subscription. The publishers commanded a high price in the 1910s and 20s—the
equivalent of approximately US$6.00 per issue, which would still be expensive for a magazine today. Eight
inches in wichh, ten inches long, and almost an inch thick,3 La Gazette possessed substantially higher paper
and print quality than a typical fashion magazine published then (or today). Other notable publications
beginning in 1912 that also featured pochoir illustrations by many of the same artists included Modes et
M aniires d Auiourd 'hui and Journal des dames et des modes. In fact, at least ten or more periodicals of
this type were published from the 1880s through the 1930s, although many of them were short-lived and
produced only a few issues. So, while not unique. La Gazette du Bon Ton was arguably the most significant
example of a flowering of these types of publications in France during the first decades of the twentieth
century. As Julian Robinson—private collector of fashion plates from La Gazette and similar
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2
publications—explained, “Although it always had contemporaries and competitors, the Gazette was
probably the most consistently good at its job, and could be said to be the best of a very good bunch.”4
Modeled after the format and concept o f two albums published by Paul Poiret— Les Robes de Paul
Poiret (with illustrations by Paul Iribe, 1908) and Les Choses de Paul P o in t (with illustrations by Georges
Lepape, 1911)— La Gazette du Bon Ton was sponsored by top couturiers in Paris, including Chemit,
Doeuillet Paquin, Redfera, Worth, and Poiret The result was not only an exquisite example of pochoir
fashion illustration, but also a thinly veiled marketing tool invented by Poiret To continually attract their
uppercrust clientele to new designs and to assert the value and status of those designs were the goals behind
the couturiers ’ support of the magazine. I intend to explore and analyze this commercial goal and the
process that Lucien Vogel and the couturiers underwent in an effort to achieve it. The conspicuous
consumption of couture among the Parisian Hite is not the only issue at stake in this paper, however. La
Gazette also took part in the articulation of, and reaction to, the prevailing characteristics of modem life in
Paris in the 1910s and 1920s.
Baudelaire’s definition of modernity was typified by an'. essential quality of being present.”3
In his words, “By ’modernity’ I mean the ephemeral, the fugitive, the contingent.. ,”6 La Gazette
participated in the dissemination of ideas about modernity on a literal level as a fashion journal that
published articles and illustrations every four to six weeks about the latest in haute couture However, an
important component of Vogel’s coverage of the couture industry also involved communicating its classic
qualities in the hopes of equating the status of couture to that of high a rt This aspect of the journal’s aim
m irrors the other side of Baudelaire’ s paradoxical definition of modernity. In addition to its ephemeral
quality, the painter of modem life who, “is looking for that quality which you must allow me [Baudelaire]
to call ‘modernity,’”7 he also, according to Baudelaire, “... makes it his business.. .to distil the eternal
from the transitory.”8 Two of his central tenets of modernism—the ephemeral and the eternal—directly
oppose each other.
Similarly, Georg Simmel, in his 1904 treatise on fashion argued that the social processes in history
could be seen in terms of both “imitation” and “differentiation.” He identified a friction between socialistic
adaptation to society and individual departure from its demands within the realm of fashion. For example.
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3
if a new trend in dress design such as Poirot’s famous corset-free couture was illustrated in La Gazette du
Bon Ton, a few grand bourgeois readers might hav e decided they had to have it too because it was on the
cutting edge o f fashion (differentiation). However, as more women acquired the same style dress in order to
also be avant guaide, the dress would lose this quality (imitation). The cycle would have then started over
again when the woman acquired a new avant guarde dress.
The constant changing in order to keep up with fashion creates a nervous energy within society.9
This nervousness, Sinunel explains causes further changes “because of the need for the attraction of
differentiation, one of the essential agents of fashion... “I0 An increasingly fragmented social life and
individuality produces neurasthenia. These phenomena are characteristics o f modem life, according to
Simmel.
Thus, in addition to looking into nature of the time, location, and culture in which La Gazette was
published, I also intend to discuss the relationship between this Journal and larger theoretical issues related
to fashion and modernity. One of the most interesting aspects of La Gazette s engagement with modernity
was the way that the publication joined elements of art and fashion—despite their inherent contradictions—
under modernity to serve a practical goal of the development of a successful marketing tool. Henry Bidou,
a contributor to the journal, described what he believed to be the befitting union of the qualities of art and
fashion in his discussion of the ambitious, but problematic, term utilized in the journal's title: “bon ton.”
This was an ideal that Vogel and the couturiers set out to achieve in an attempt infuse the journal and the
fashions illustrated inside its cover with the higher status and archetypal features of art. The contradiction
between these qualities associated with art and the nature of fashion are at the heart of La Gazette's
editorial stance. La Gazette promoted the latest couture fashion designs, but tried to maintain a traditional
image. The articles and illustrations exhibited new qualities of life in the 1910s and 1920s (i.e. the
automobile, leisure, travel, sports, etc.) while simultaneously asserting a traditional image as a champion of
the grand bourgeois status quo. The fact that these strategies produced contradictions did not deter the
couturiers. They wanted to possess all of the qualities of art and fashion regardless of the resulting
incongruity. Moreover, I will maintain, in the context of this paper, that the disparity itself is a fundamental
component of modernity.
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4
Therefore, I am suggesting that, overall, La Gazette played a few different roles. On a practical
level, it acted as a marketing tool—the best example of its land. On a theoretical level when looking at it
from today’s historical vantage point. La Gazette also appears to have participated willingly or
unwillingly—in the struggle to define modernity. La Gazette du Bon Ton has been contemplated with little
depth or frequency in the history of fashion or the arts in the twentieth century. When it has been
considered, it has almost always been in books about A rt Deco or fashion illustration where any potential
contribution to a multifaceted history of fashion has tended to be over simplified." Historians have not
thoroughly explored what it means to refer to La Gazette du Bon Ton in relation to the issues I have
mentioned above. It is a precarious project. I hope to assemble a more complete picture of La Gazette. I
also hope to articulate some new questions and offer proposals that might lead to a more complete picture
about the relationship between fashion and modernity.
'Lucien Vogel edited la Gazette Du Bon Ton. His firm, Les Editions Lucien Vogel, published the journal in
cooperation with the Librairie Centrale des Beaux-Arts before Condi Nast took over the publication in
1920. See Shane Adler Davis, "Lucien Vogel," Costume: The Journal o f the Costume Society, no. 12,
(London: Published for the Society, 1978), p. 77.
2 It can be found in Parsons School of Design library , special collections; The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
Thomas J. Watson Art Library (full set); the New York Public Library (incomplete); UCLA, special
collections. According to Julian Robinson, The Golden Age o f Style: A rt Deco Fashion Illustration
(London, 1976) La Gazette du Bon Ton can also be found in the following locations: British Museum,
London; Bodleian Library, University of Oxford; Free Library of Philadelphia; United States Library of
Congress, Washington; University Library, University of Cambridge and the Victoria & Albert Museum,
London.
3 A few exceptions were the July 1915, issue published during the war and issues published from 1920 to
1925 after Lucien Vogel stepped down from his role as editor to pursue other publishing projects. During
these latter years Cowfc Nast decreased the physical quality of the journal substantially in an effort to make
the La Gazette a more profitable enterprise.
4 Robinson, The Golden Age o f Style, p. 28.
3 David Frisby, “Georg Simmel: First Sociologist of Modernity,’ ' Theory, Culture & Society, vol. 2., no. 3.,
(1985), p.50.
6 Charles Baudelaire, The Painter o f Modem Life and Other Essays, [Jonathan Mayne, Trans, and Ed. |,
(London: Phaidon Press Limited, 1964, 1995,2n d edition), p. 12.
7 Ibid., p. 12.
8 Baudelaire, The Painter o f Modem Life, p. 12.
9 David Frisby, “Georg Simmel," p.63.
1 0 Georg Simmel quoted by David Frisby, "Georg Simmel....” p.63.
" See Robinson, The Golden Age o f Style; Giulia Veronesi, Style and Design. 1909-1929 (New York:
George Braziller, Inc., 1968); Patricia Frantz Kery, Art Deco Graphics (New York: Harry N. Abrams,
1986); Susan A. Sternau, Art Deco: Flights o f Artistic Fancy (New York: Todtri Productions Limited,
1997).
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Chapter Oae
5
That this renaissance in fashion illustration should happen when and where it did is not.
with hindsight, really surprising. It was almost inevitable. Fashion design, illustration
and fashion journalism were, and still are. taken fa r more seriously in France than
elsewhere.
Julian Robinson
What was La Gazette du Bon Ton? This is an unexpectedly challenging question. When applying
definitions, the Gazette often slips out from underneath, eluding categorization as a typical publication.
There seems to be an exception for every definition. Is it a magazine, a journal, or an album de luxe?
Historians have referred to it by each of these terms. At the same time, La Gazette exhibits some of the
qualities of a fashion magazine, a limited edition journal, a prim portfolio, and a collection of annotated
fashion illustrations. None of these terms fits just right.
The term “magazine" connotes a publication more cheaply made than La Gazette, ft better
describes a breed of fashion magazines published in Paris, London, and New York before, during, and
after La Gazette was published. These included Vogue and Harper's Bazaar, which used Mack and white
half tone and line illustrations. Unlike La Gazette, these and others included photographs to illustrate
couture designs while Les Modes employed colored photographs.1
In cosmopolitan cities such as New York and Paris, the women’s magazine industry—which had
been established by 187S—consisted of titles geared toward a large m arket La Gazette resembled a
different model, one that was more literary and elitist2 Attending the movies was a new leisure activity
for the bourgeois during this period—one that the grand bourgeoisie class looked down upon as vulgar.
Perhaps because of photography’s association with cinema, Vogel decided against the use of any
photography in La Gazette. The utilization of illustrations rendered in pochoir might have emphasized the
fact that this was a special publication geared toward the dite.
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6
La Gazette resembled the albums published fay Poiret rather than magazines like Les Modes or
Vogue. However, La Gazette differed conceptually in that it was originally sponsored by seven couturiers
and illustrated fa y seven principal artists, instead of just one. Lucien Vogel obtained financing from the top
maisons du couture in Paris and regularly featured designs from each of these houses in the pages of La
Gazette. Vogel hired a team of artists to furnish the illustrations by using a high quality, but laborious and
expensive technique called pochoir (literally' “stencil”), to guide the application of gouache or aquarelle
onto linear ink drawings of the models.
All of the original illustrators received their training at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Many
of them were designers who produced set designs, costumes, posters, books, and albums during the course
of their careers. They did not merely copy the designs presented by the couturiers, they interpreted them,
often embellishing them with playful exaggerations of details or inventing a narrative and a theatrical
setting. Earlier fashion illustration possessed qualities that are more static. The former approach to
fashion illustration also lacked the color and brightness of the illustrations that appeared in the Gazette.
During the latter half of the 1880s—before the revival of pochoir—fashion illustrations were
transferred into prints for publication via an engraving process whereby an illustrator drew the image but
then turned it over to professional engravers to complete. Sulpice-Guillaume Chevalier (1804-1866),
known as “Gavami," and a group of four siblings known as The Colin Sisters were prominent among
these earlier fashion illustrators. They contributed fashion illustrations to publications during the
nineteenth century such as Journal des Dames et des Modes (the former version, this same title was later
given to a revival of the publication in 1912), Petit Courier des Dames, Fashionable, and Sylphide.
Like Lepape, Iribe, and their twentieth-century counterparts, Gavami—who illustrated fashion
journals a century earlier—was known for depicting the “modem” Parisiennc According to Valerie
Steele, fashion historian, “ imagiers like Gavami represented a new type of artist. The multiple images
they produced were not high ait, nor were they examples of the crude and anonymous popular imagery
that had existed for centuries.”1 In order to focus attention on the clothing designs, illustrators invented
uncommon techniques such as distributing the models across the page with an unnatural amount of space
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7
between them, so that they did not overlap each other. This technique flattened the picture plane
considerably but assured that no details of the clothing would be covered up. “If drawing as imagination
or ‘thinking on paper' was the privilege of fine artists, the work of fashion artists used drawing as a
means of explaining what a completed work in another medium would look like.”4 This is how Steele
described the illustration process in her recent book on Paris fashion.
Compared to fashion illustration of the 1910s and 20s, which portrayed designs in bold lines
filled in with flat blocks of bold color, reminiscent of Japanese prints, illustration produced in the mid-
nineteenth century was rendered in great detail with little or no color. Figures appeared more realistic,
detailed, and three-dimensional than those rendered in pochoir. In the interest of efficiency, it was
necessary, at times, to simultaneously illustrate models wearing daywear and evening wear in same party
scene, therefore figures did not always make sense as a narrative scene. Julian Robinson described this old
approach to fashion illustration—when a team completed illustrations—in the following manner:
. . . Generally fashion illustration concentrated on detail, on information rather
than expression; it developed its own linear language to cope with its particular job and
remained isolated from any replenishment or influence from the mainstream of the
visual arts. Indeed, there was little chance for fashion illustrators to experiment when
the problem of their obviously limited function was compounded by the frequent use of
several artists to produce one drawing.3
On the other hand, later illustration, such as that by Lepape, Martin, Barbier, or Iribe for La
Gazette was flat, more two-dimensional—almost reminiscent of cartoon illustration, albeit an elegant
version. However, the two-dimensional figures were set in space like actors in a scene—not only involving
action—but also laid out within a space that suggested a foreground, middle ground, and background.
Many of these developments became evident upon the completion of Poiret’s first album de luxe, solely
illustrated by Paul Iribe. This method continued to evolve when Vogel initiated La Gazette du Bon Ton.
Artists of the teens and twenties, like these just mentioned, created their own illustrations and signed them
individually, they did not “team illustrate” La Gazette, as had been done during the time of G a v a m i or the
Colin Sisters.
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8
The twentieth-century pochoir prints shared many visual qualities. This consistency of
appearance among them was later named after a style. Art Deco. After Vogel commissioned each
illustration, he utilized his editorial prowess to orchestrate these individual drawings into a coherent
whole within the pages of every issue according to his vision to celebrate “ Arts, Modes, and Frivoiites"
(the subtitle o f La Gazette du Bon Ton). In an article published in the first issue of La Gazette, Henri
Bidou articulated Vogel’s editorial philosophy for the journal. He explained reasons for naming the
periodical “bon ton." (His words on this concept will be looked at more closely- in chapter three, below.)
Beginning with the inaugural issue in 1912, Vogel produced approximately ten issues per year
for subscribers until 1914, when publication was interrupted during World War I. Each issue contained
approximately ten pochoir plates printed on hand-made vellum paper. Vogel hired a typesetter named
Georges Feignot who developed the typeface for La Gazette known as “Cochin.”6 The July, 1914, issue
released just before France's entrance into the war (in August 1914) was the last one to be published
before the wartime interruption. This issue did not possess the same gaiety and frivolity as previous issues
and made numerous references to the impending war.
In July, 1915, the only issue of La Gazette du Bon Ton published during the wartime interruption
from August, 1914, to January 1920, was released in French and in English. It was a special joint French-
American project co-published with Condb Nast in New York to commemorate the Pan Pacific
International Exposition held in San Francisco that year. The business of the couturier was
understandably suffering. Aside from opportunities presented by the exposition in San Francisco, there
were very few venues for shows and sales of haute couture. Some remained in operation to produce
military uniforms. Couturiers were not immune to the demands of war. Even Paul Poiret, one of the most
prominent couturiers in France at this time, mobilized to assist in the effort. He temporarily closed the
doors to his maison du couture, but maintained contact with the fashion industry in the United States as
mentioned above. Americans organized the fashion exposition called the Panama Pacific International
Exhibition, in part, to aid European designers by giving them a venue by which to maintain their business
practices during the war.7
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9
In his book on French ait during the war, Kenneth Silver pointed out that many little magazines
and albums de luxe started up in the years just before the War. Despite a pervading sense of melancholy,
“. . .a it not only would flourish again in France, but would continue to be made in the midst of the war,
both at the front and in Paris."1 This was true for the publishing and fashion industries too. Julian
Robinson described the circumstances of Parisian couturiers as follows:
War or no war, Paris was determined that her role as creator of fashion and
aibiter of elegance was not going to be usurped by either London or New
York. During the following four years of conflict, the Grand Couturiers
continued as best they could and the export of haute couture garments,
particularly to the United States, became an important port of the French war
effort The materials of their ait may have been in short supply (wool for
example could only be obtained once troop requirements had been satisfied)
and the nimble fingers of their skilled workers may have been working on
munitions, but nevertheless the fashion collections continued to be made.
The Panama Pacific International Exposition held in San Francisco in
1915, for from the guns of Europe, was an ideal venue for the Parisian
couture houses to demonstrate their proeminence in la mode ftm inine. As a
special souvenir issue of this exhibition, the Gazette du Bon Ton published a
joint French and American edition in collaboration with Condi Nast in New
York, dated 15th May 1915, as well as a double French edition.9
That issue included articles of a more serious note than usual about ways to be conservative and frugal in
dress—ways in which its readers could reconcile fashion with material shortages due to the war..
However, it also managed to include the same beautiful pochoir illustrations that appeared in every issue,
although there were less than the usual number. The American edition reiterated French pride in their
own taste and fashion at a time when they felt particularly sensitive. George Barbier, £tienne Drian and
Georges Lepape illustrated the French displays in San Francisco where, "Sixty new fashions created by
the Parisian Houses were shown within the three major French displays, entitled ‘Vichy’, ‘Longchamp’,
and ‘The Riviera’; they were arranged on special wax figures by Pierre Imans against the beautiful
French-inspired background. ”' 0
Etienne Drian provided one particular illustration that provocatively suggested the contradiction
between the couture industry and the concerns of war. The image portrayed a model dressed in haute
couture -an elaborate, bulbous skin standing with her back to us as she examines a military map of
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10
Europe at war. Understandably, a contradictory tension existed between these two different worlds. O f
equal importance is the feet that they did exist simultaneously. Many Fiencfa couturiers were forced to
close their doors to assist in the war effort. Some of these produced military uniforms—very different from
couture and not as economically prosperous. But an important factor supporting each of these efforts was
the continued support of haute couture from the Americans who created the venues for Parisian designers,
illustrators, and artists The opportunity to show off some couture to the Americans who were not yet at
war provided an international venue for couturiers to remain in business to a degree and gave a
boost to their national pride as representatives of French haute couture.
A few fashion magazines went beyond merely “persisting” through this period. Amazingly, also
in the midst of the chaos of war, in August, 1915, Vogel initiated Le Style Parisien as one of many o f his
own attempts to support the ailing couture industries. This journal was also devoted to fashion, like La
Gazette, but it only survived until February, 1916, publishing a total of seven issues. “Twelve illustrated
pages grouped couture fashions on one side and moddes Style Parisien’ on the other, alternating black-
and-white with tinted thawings by Dartey. A few articles discussing conventional fashion were lined with
photographs. Gone was the carefree and bold spirit expressed in the Gazette; Le Style Parisien was
apprehensive and the mood of war pervaded it.”1 1
Post-wartime publication of La Gazette du Bon Ton resumed in 1920 with a bimonthly issue for
January/February of that year with the usual superior quality of La Gazette, but also a quality of subdued
optimism. Eduardo Garcia Benito, Marthe Romme, and Pierre Mourgue—artists who contributed some
illustrations before the war—rejoined the staff. Additional couturiers were obtained for financial support
including Beer, Paquin, and Vionnet.1 2 Other publications similar to La Gazette started up at this time
rendering La Gazette not as unique as it once was and eliciting competition over the illustrators who were
mote in demand. At this point Vogel was strained financially and did not have the enthusiasm he once
had. Concfc Nast, who already held rights to La Gazette in the United States, purchased La Gazette from
Vogel’s publishing company, Les Editions Lucien Vogel. Nast lowered the subscription price and the
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II
quality, essentially transforming it into a veiy different magazine. “...In 1921 a year’s subscription was
$32.00 and $4.00 was charged per copy, in 1922 the prices were $15.00 and $2.00 [respectivdy|.”1 3
Replaced as editor (directeur) by Jean Labusqufere, by 1923, Vogel no longer contributed to La
Gazette.1 4 Shane Adler Davis suggested that La Gazette's decline in quality brought it down to a level
where it would have competed with Vogue magazine. Nast and Labusqutere, together, changed the format.
They cheapened the production quality and geared it to a larger audience. Thus, La Gazette became a
publication for a wider cross-section of the public—not exclusively for the grand bourgeoisie anymore. As
one would assume, Nast’s loyalties lay with Vogue, which ultima'ely won out over La Gazette. In theory,
once the hand-made, precious qualities of La Gazette were no longer present, there ceased to be a reason
for La Gazette to exist at all. By 1925, La Gazette du Bon Ton ceased production with the publication of
its sixty-ninth issue.
Throughout Vogel’s direction, the journal excelled as a periodical for the wealthy, dlite of
Parisian society and has subsequently been recognized as the best quality of several publications of its kind
published during the 1910s and 1920s. Despite its sad fizzle in 1925, the Gazette has continued to
maintain a reputation in history- as being the best at what it had set out to do. Giulia Veronesi, author of a
book on style and design from 1909 to 1929. described La Gazette du Bon Ton as . .one of the most
light-hearted and penetrating guides to the taste which prevailed just before the war, in the years 1913-14,
and even after the war in 1920-25, although it later lacked something of the old finesse and authority.” 1 3
Caroline Seebohm, author of a book on the life of Condg Nast called La Gazette “...the most famous of
them all.”1 6
Other Journals de Lou
While La Gazette has stood out above other publications of its kind, it shared distinct
characteristics with other limited edition fashion journals produced at this time. Many utilized pochoir
illustrations and articles on “[the] fashionable life.” Tom Antongini founded Le Journal des Dames et des
Modes, in 1912, for “lovers of rare editions."1' Even though the title suggested that this was a fashion
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1 2
journal for women, Antongini geared it toward the collector of either gender. He revived the defunct
journal by the same name put out in the eighteenth century and published the new magazine under the
same title in a print run of 1250 copies. Issued three times a month, it continued for only two years, from
June 1, 1912 to August 1, 1914. La Gazette du Bon Ton excelled in comparison in that Le Journal was not
able to start up again after the War. However, the journals featured similar content in the form of society
columns, and theater reviews, and fashion reports illustrated with pochoir. Each conveyed the same
innocent, happy tone. Using illustrations by many of the same artists who worked for La Gazette such as
Georges Barbier (1882-1932) and Bernard Boutet de Monvel (1881-1949), Le Journal included sixteen
pages of fashion illustration per issue. Four pages were reserved for advertising by fashion houses and
suppliers. Christina Nuzzi, author of a book on Le Journal des Dames et des Modes, asserted that it was
“...not simply a fashion vehicle. It was essentially the testimony, the history—illustrated, or rather
‘ clothed’ and narrated—of the customs, ideas, and ideals of a society and a period”1 8
Other journals had a similar relationship to La Gazette du Bon Ton, sharing many qualities. Les
Modes et M aniires d'Aujourd’ hui, published by Jean Saudd author of the twentieth-century treatise on
pochoir, put out its first issue in 1912. Femina possessed a similar form and content, but it was poorer in
quality in relation to La Gazette, Le Journal, and Les Modes. (Incidentally, Lucien Vogel had worked as
the art director at Femina in 1906 at the age of twenty.)
In May of 1919, while La Gazette was interrupted due to the war, Vogel, himself, provided
competition for his own La Gazette called Les Feuillets d Art. It contained articles about art rather than
La Gazette du Bon Ton, which focused on fashion. But, many of the same artists contributed
illustrations.1 9 Six issues were published from May 1919 to July 1920 featuring reviews of the arts,
produced with “Vogel’s trademark(s) .. typeface, artistic layout, and quality illustrations—pochoir
fashion plates, fine art reproductions, and woodblock prints decorating the text—on handmade paper.”2 0
The print run was limited to 2000 copies. Ultimately. Conck Nast also bought Les Feuillets dArt when he
purchased La Gazette du Bon Ton. Again, like the ftM e of La Gazette, the quality of Les Feuillets declined
when Nast took over and it too folded shortly thereafter in March of 1922.
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1 3
Articles
Not only was I m Gazette du Bon Ton “the best of a very good bunch” persevering over a decade
while the competition usually lasted only a year or two—sometimes only releasing one or two issues. But,
its success was also tied to the quality of its artistic form, textual content, and the synchronous
relationship between the two. Julian Robinson said that, "[La\ Gazette du Bon Ton always managed to
convey the quality of a carefully compiled book; it carried as much text as illustration and both parts
sustained equally high standards and a coherent style.”2 1
In the first issue of La Gazette du Bon Ton: Arts, Modes, and Frivotitt from 1912. Henry Bidou,
a contributor, wrote an article defining the notion of “bon ton” which read as a treatise on the subject. In
addition to discussing this meaning of the journal’s title, he also outlined the overall structure of the
articles to be expected from the journal. According to Bidou. bon ton was a quality maintained by La
Gazette. According to Bidou, it never varies. It suits fashion and taste, yet it is not didactic. It is discreet
and reserved. He explained that La Gazette du Bon Ton should be seen as a talisman, a guide, but not
something that tried to be too cheery or sentimental. It almost sounds like Bidou was describing fine wine
instead of a journal when he stated that a magazine like La Gazette took years to create—"it needed to be
formed carefully over time.” It possessed grace and beauty, but it did not brag or show off. He even called
the design "spiritual,” especially in the use of color.
Ignoring the limitations of both magazines and fashion, Bidou described an ideal that was most
likely unrealistic and unattainable. However, the mere feet that this was what La Gazette set out to
achieve is significant for its participation in a dialogue about fashion and modernity that will be addressed
in more depth in the third chapter of this paper.
Pochoir
In 1923, the year that La Gazette du Bon Ton folded, Jean Sautk published a treatise on pochoir
entitled Traiti d Enluminure d'Art au Pochoir in which he described the artisans who practiced pochoir
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priming as having been dedicated to it as a vocation. The 1910s and 20s saw a rebirth of this process that,
as previously- mentioned, originated during the fifteenth centuiy. This technique was not only utilized in
fashion magazines like La Gazette, tu t also in the production of many projects in Paris from 1910 to 1933
such as illustrated books, design portfolios, greeting cards, and advertisements.2 2 The term “pochoir” has
been used in France since the last quarter of the nineteenth century.2 3
The pochoir print used stencils to reproduce, by hand, the artist’s original composition.
Expensive, but a method that reproduced drawings in vivid color, pochoir prints resembled original
watercolors or aquarelles. The artist’s original composition was analyzed and then broken down
according to color. A stencil was made from oiled board or a thin sheet of metal for each separate color.
The stencils were precisely cut, following the outline of the area to be colored. The printer matched the
pigment in the original drawing and mixed it from gouache (opaque) or aquarelle (more transparent).
Individual colors were applied with pompons— stencil brushes-in order to lay out the appropriate amount
of color. The patron, or stencil, designated for one specific color, was then removed without smearing the
print. Modeling was not often utilized, but if desired, it could have been achieved with the pompon or a
sponge 2 4 “Though costly, hand-coloring was so attractive that printing budgets were stretched to make it
possible for everything from fashion magazines to art historical studies o f the Cubists.”2 3 Pochoir was also
a flexible technique that could have been combined with other types of printing such as standard photo
mechanical printing, woodcut, lithography, etching, or collotype to control cost and labor, but without
having to give up the appearance of high quality blocks of vivid color.2 6 B un Wallen, organizer of a 1978
exhibition of pochoir prints and illustrated books, asserted that pochoir “became the most important
printmaldng form of Art D6co...The stencil process lent itself to the Art Ddco concern for simplified areas
of color and geometric abstraction” 2 7
As described, pochoir was not a mechanical means of reproduction. It was a time-consuming
manual process whereby the design was built up over the course of several layers of color by filling each
stencil in with color, letting it dry and then repeating the process until the desired opacity was reached.
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15
Publisher Jean Saud6 might use up to thirty separate stencils for an individual print. According to him,
the result could produce “the freshness o f a delicate watercolor."2 *
Since the invention of the pochoir technique, until its revival by fashion illustrators in the early
twentieth century, pochoir printers remained mostly anonymous.2 9 Paul Poiret, not only re-invigorated
the venues for fashion illustration, but also for the reputations of artists who used pochoir. Previously
"team illustrated," illustrations at that time were separated into small sections. A different artist worked
on each stage. One illustrator mapped out the composition, while another produced the figure drawing,
still another placed the figures on the page, and yet another would sketch the clothing onto the figure
drawing. However, when one artist worked independently on an illustration, it enabled the possibility of a
formally and conceptually coherent series of colored drawings. These illustrations also featured the
theatrical qualities described earlier in this paper. Often a narrative scene animated the figures adorned
with the designer clothes. Influenced by contemporary French art and eighteenth century Japanese art,
bold gestural lines and bright colors suited pochoir. According to Patricia Eckert Boyer in an essay about
illustrators of fin-de-siicle Paris, "In this golden age of illustration, publishers of periodicals were patrons
for many of the best young avant-garde painters and graphic artists of the day .. n 3 ° The American
version of La Gazette provided a means by which upper class New Yorkers could have experienced a slice
of modern Parisian life and fashion from across the Atlantic.
Despite the fact that this English edition of La Gazette was published in New York, fashion
illustration rendered in pochoir never developed there to the extent that it prospered in France. Instead,
magazines of lower production quality that reached out to a larger market prospered. During the 1920s
some of the original illustrators of La Gazette du Bon Ton such as Georges Lepape, Benito, and Erte
designed covers for American Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, and Vanity Fair,3 1 but these publications were
never as precious as La Gazette nor did they stick to hand-crafted illustration. Ultimately, photography
became the medium of choice to portray the work of fashion designers in the magazines, especially in
America.
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16
Illustrations reproduced in pochoir (by hand) during the 1910s and 1920s were simultaneously a
relatively primitive technique, but were able to produce prints that were more elegant appearing higher in
quality than other printing methods. Pochoir was, and remains, a process that requires the artist to
manually generate the prim by filling in stencils with color. The artist could have a greater sense of power
over the printing that would not have been possible with other mediums because the brushstroke is
preserved. The medium (watercolor, ink, etc.) was not transferred with a press or other tool or machine.
Additionally, the pigments were carefully mixed by hand. Pochoir was uniquely suitable for carrying out
the forms historically categorized as Art D ico and for exuding an aura of high in quality. Each print was
basically an original. This paralleled a quality that Poiret and other couturiers wanted to stress about their
own designs when they associated them with the status of high art. (This will be looked at in more detail
in the second chapter.)
1 Robinson, The Golden Age o f Style., p. 36.
2 Christopher Breward, “Femininity and Consumption: The Problem of the Late Nineteenth-Century
Fashion Journal.” Journal o f Design History, vol. 7, no. 2, (1994), p.71.
3 Valerie Steele, Paris Fashion: A Cultural History, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988).
p. 101.
4 Steele, Paris Fashion., pp. 114-15.
5 Robinson, p. 9-10.
6 Shane Adler Davis, 'Lucien VogeL" Costume: The Journal o f the Costume Society, no. 12, (London:
Published for the Society, 1978), p. 75.
7 Davis, “Lucien Vogel,” p. 76.
* Kenneth Silver, Esprit de Corps: The A rt o f the Parisian Avant-Garde and the First World War, 1914-
1925, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), p.3.
9 Robinson, The Golden Age o f Style, pp. 62-64.
1 0 Robinson, The Golden Age o f Style, p. 64.
1 1 Davis, “Lucien Vogel,” p.76.
1 2 Davis. “Lucien VogeL” p. 77.
1 3 Davis, “Lucien VogeL" p.77.
1 4 Davis, “Lucien VogeL” p. 77.
1 3 Giulia VeronesL Style and Design, 1909-1929, (New York: George Braziller, Inc., 1968), p. 117.
1 6 Caroline Seebohm, The Man who was Vogue: The Life and Times of Condi Nast, (New York: The
Viking Press), p. 170.
1 7 Christina NuzzL (Introduction), Parisian Fashion from the "Journal des Dames et des Modes." (New
York: Rizzoli, 1979) n. pag.
1 1 Ibid., n. pag..
1 9 Martin Battenby, The Decorative Twenties, p. 134.
2 0 Davis, “Lucien Vogel,” p. 78.
2 1 Robinson, The Golden Age o f Style., p.28.
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17
2 2 Burr Wallen, Pochoir: Flowering o f the Hand-Colored Process in Prints and Illustrated Books, 1910-
1935 [An exhibition organized by Bun Wallen in collaboration with Stephen Greengard. January 4 to
February 12,1978] (Santa Barbara: University of California, Santa Barbara, 1978), p. 1
2 3 Ibid., p. 1.
2 4 Wallen, Pochoir, p.2.
2 5 Wallen, Pochoir, p.2.
2 6 Wallen, Pochoir, p.2.
2 7 Wallen, Pochoir. p .l.
2 8 Robinson, The Golden Age o f Style p.22.
2 9 W alkn, Pochoir p.2.
"Patricia Eckert Boyer. "The Artist as Illustrator in Fin-de-Siecle Paris," in The Graphic Arts and French
Society 1871-1914, Phillip Dennis Cate (ed.), (New Brunswick and London: Rutgers University Press,
1988) p. 115.
3 1 Steele, Paris Fashion, p. 234.
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Chapter Two
18
The inside cover of La Gazette du Bon Ton cited the cooperative role of the grand couturiers of
Paris, describing them as “contributors, collaborators, and advisors.” They were listed individually calling
attention to their close ties to the journal. This was an accurate description of their involvement, but the
most significant contribution that the designers provided was financial support for La Gazette from its
inception. Listed in alphabetical order, the original seven supporters were Cheruit, Doeuillet, Doucet,
Lanvin, Poiret, Redfem, and Worth. Their supportive role was not only acknowledged inside the front
cover. Haute couture from each o f these houses was regularly featured in La Gazette. Like Paul Poiret ’s
albums de luxe—Les robes de Paul Poiret raconties par Paul Iribe (1908) and Les choses de Paul Poiret
vues par Georges Lepape (1911)—La Gazette adopted a promotional role as part of its editorial duty. In
fact, throughout his career, Lucien Vogel repeatedly developed ways to boost the couture industry such as
his daring wartime launch of Le Style Parisien mentioned in the previous chapter. Equally important was
the success of La Gazette as a marketing tool. Parisian couturiers realized this and used La Gazette as a
vehicle in which to carve out a stronger position for themselves in a changing marketplace.
The technology to mass-produce goods as a result of industrialization spurred the evolution of a
culture of consumerism in the latter part of the nineteenth century. In 1852. Aristide Boucicaut took over
the then ailing Bon Marche and transformed it into a successful department store. The development of
this new commercial institution, combined with France’s industrial development, ushered newly defined
sectors such as advertising and marketing into the Parisian economy. Within a relatively short period,
more department stores opened and rapidly became predominant cultural as well as economic institutions
in France by the first decades of the twentieth century. Their success relied upon new types of leisure
activities associated with consumption, such as fldneurie among a sub-aristocratic class o f men, and
shopping, primarily among middle-class women. Stores, posters, the development of “brand names,” and
advertising laid the groundwork for an economy in which selling and consumption became activities
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19
central to daily life in Paris. This phenomenon was egged on by the continual creation of new needs and
new desires.1
As this cultural phenomenon developed, related employment opportunities did too. Sales
professionals adopted gentler “customer service” practices in contrast to earlier, more primitive methods
of haggling with consumers over goods. Once the act of buying became enjoyable, according to Rachel
Bowlby, " . . .shopping became a leisure activity—a way of pleasantly passing the time, like going to a play
or visiting a museum.”2 The “shopper,” was usually middle-class, although some working-class women
utilized any extra time and income—when they could get it—to participate in this activity too.3
Regardless of what class consumers belonged to, they shared the human capacity to desire. Newly
invented “strategies of enticement”4 conjured up conscious and unconscious desires. Department stores
created what has been described as a theatrical environment inside their doors that attracted all of the
senses through the display of goods that seemed to simultaneously call forth and sublimate their recently
discovered desires. Assembled for the first time under one roof in an artistically and theatrically controlled
setting, merchandise was carefully displayed throughout the store very much like objects on display in a
museum. These goods were dramatically lit or encased in glass shelves and vitrines producing an enticing,
shimmering visual effect when light bounced off its edges. Shop windows were treated the same way in
order to entice passersby to enter.
William Leach defined “strategies of enticement” in his study of American department stores.
This referred to the use of “color, glass, and light” in the creation of department store displays. The
increased availability of electricity, glass, and manufactured pigments for raw materials made it possible
to construct a theatrical setting around goods on display. This development was not limited to department
stores. Ultimately, the use of these materials to spark desire in potential customers spread throughout
other developing venues for entertainment such as opera houses, ballet companies, restaurants, hotels,
amusement parks, Guts and museums.3 According to Leach, “By 1920 urban Americans had radically
altered the meaning of commodities through dramatic treatment, investing them with an emotional power
that set them off and above other things. But Americans did mote than visually dramatize goods; they
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20
attempted to give them associative power as well."6 Rosalind Williams referred to the above mentioned,
prim arily commercial, venues for entertainment as "dreamworlds of mass consumption.’ '7
An important distinction existed, however, between the clientele of the department store and the
couturier—the former comprised of the bourgeoisie, while the latter attracted only the very upper crust of
society—the grand bourgeoisie. Overall, shopping was a bourgeois leisure activity considered too
mundane and vulgar for the upper crust of society. La Gazette du Bon Ton was a tool that Parisian
couturiers used to market their goods to the upper class that would not have shopped at the deportment
stores. Instead, the grand bourgeoisie frequented the couture boutiques in order to socialize with other
clients—not “shop”—and to be personally attended to in the context of private showings or fittings.
The deportment store posed a threat to the cachet of designer goods, but not to the clients of the
nuusons du couture. The simultaneous presence of these consumer venues influenced each other in a more
complicated way. It could be argued that La Gazette du Bon Ton played the same role for (he grand
bourgeoisie that the department stores carried out for the bourgeoisie. (I will go into more detail about
this hypothesis in the next chapter.)
Couturiers were threatened by the effect that “ready-to-wear,” department store goods would
have on the status and value of haute couture. Department stores, especially in America, developed a
practice of copying designer originals, creating a blow to the cachet of haute couture. “Urban retailers [in
America]., .sent fashion promoters’ over to copy the models of Paris couturiers..." because, according
to Leach, the only type of model that the American public would buy then was one that had been
thoroughly publicized in the various fashion journals. Without any American designers of repute, retailers
believed that they had to reproduce the latest mode from Paris in order to sell merchandise. American
buyers made a crude version of Parisian haute couture, translating it into a product for less affluent
clientele. When Foiret made a trip to America in 1913, he found numerous copies of his work selling for
reduced prices in department stores there.
In an essay about fashion and modern life painting, historian Leila W. Kinney discussed an
anecdote about the opening of a group of stores across the street from the Palais du Louvre in 18SS. The
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21
store adopted the name Louvre. Drawing on the criticism of an 1882 journalist for Le Figaro, she
proposed that this was an example of an attenqx by the proprietor to take advantage of the cachet o f the
Louvre by imposing a relationship between the two institutions. “ .. .The realms of ait and commerce had
become interlocking, competitive models o f cultural formation in the second half of the nineteenth
century,” according to Kinney.*
It could be argued that La Gazette merely adopted the same underlying strategy when grand
couturiers sponsored its production in order to capitalize on the association of their fashion designs with
the status of art. However, it seems that the careful attention to discretion and its connection to the upper
class were enough to stave off this kind of criticism. As previously mentioned, Vogel successfully obtained
financial support from couturiers in return for illustrations their fashions inside La Gazette. Vogel, in
turn, used the cachet o f the dress designers to sell his journal to their clients. By aligning their designs
with artists and the illustrators’ original artwork, couturiers hoped to imbue the aura associated with high
an into their couture designs. Intimidated by the cheap quality and prevalent availability of the copies, all
couturiers, like Poiret felt the need to re-establish the prestige of Parisian haute couture.
La Gazette du Bon Ton became a medium through which couturiers might assuage these
insecurities. This was a tasteful strategy without the crassness and cheap aura of blatant advertisements.
Nancy J. Troy originally made this connection in an essay about Paul Poiret asserting that, “...the haute
couturier maintained the distinctive allure of his products by not advertising [her emphasis|, at least not to
large audience, and by appropriating the fine arts to promote the originality, uniqueness and aesthetic
quality of his designs.”9
In fact, both the art world and the couture industry used this method of associating qualities of
one industry with the other, keeping in mind the ultimate purpose of selling more goods. Many American
deportment stores, modeled after the original Au Bon Marche in France, were founded at the same time as
many art museums in America. The two types of institutions worked together to forge similar, beneficial
associations between art and commerce. For example, according to Michael Kimmelman, an art critic for
The New York Times, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, founded in 1870, sold women's lingerie in the gift
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22
shop at one time. The Brooklyn Museum collaborated with Abraham & Straus, and Bonwit Teller to
curate exhibitions of African fabrics within the museum and inside the department stores.1 0 Creating an
exhibition of ait in a department store encouraged the activity of browsing; transferring the activity from
one previously only carried out in museums to the realm of the department store. Many exhibitions of fine
art were held in department stores during this period. For example, the first Cubist art show in America
took place at Gimbels* in Pittsburgh in 1913.1 1
Rachel Bowlby explained one of the effects of positioning commercial goods in a particular
environment. Whether placed along side of fine art or in a fabricated theatrical setting, ’ •Commodities
were put on show in an attractive guise becoming unreal in that they were images set apart from everyday
things, and real in that they were bought and taken home to enhance the ordinary environment"1 2
Perhaps the stimulation that “strategies of enticement” in department stores provided for the bourgeoisie
corresponded to desires that La Gazette du Bon Ton encouraged in the upper class.
I Rachel Bowlby, Just Looking: Consumer Culture in Dreiser, Gissing and Zola, (London: Methuen,
1985) p.2-3.
:BowIby, Just Looking:, p. 4.
3 A limited number of working-class women who occasionally afforded the time to browse or spend extra
pocket money might have shopped at the Bon Marchi. However, the store had a cash-only policy that
enforced a limit on spending. Other department stores established at this time, such as the Magasins
Dufqyel, specialized in offering credit to the working class. (See Miller, Michael B., The Bon Marchi:
Bourgeois Culture and the Department Store, 1869-1920, (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University
Press, 1981).
4 See William R. Leach, "Strategies of Display and the Production of Desire," in Consuming Visions:
Accumulation and Display o f Goods in America 1880-1920. Ed. Simon J. Bonner. (New York and
London: W.W. Norton) 1989.
5 Ibid., p. 104.
6 Leach, "Strategies of D isplay...” p. 116.
7 Rosalind H. Williams, Dream Worlds: Mass Consumption in Late Nineteenth Century France, (Berkeley
and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1982), p. 108.
s Leila W. Kinney, “Fashion and Figuration in Modem Life Painting,” in Architecture: In Fashion.
(Princeton, N. J.: Princeton Architectural Press, 1994), p.271.
’Nancy J. Troy, "Domesticity, Decoration and Consumer Culture: Selling Art and Design in Pre-World
War I Fiance." (unpublished manuscript), p. 18.
1 0 Michael Kimmelman, “Art in Aisle 3, by Lingerie, and Feel Free to Browse,” The New York Times,
(March 19, 1995), p. 43.
II Michael Kimmelman, The New York Times, (March 19, 1995), p. 46.
1 2 BowIby, Just Looking:, p. 2.
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Chapter Three
23
M odernity, Ptostitutioa, FU nearie en d La G azette da Boa Ton
As seen in the previous chapters, the Hite citizens of cosmopolitan cities like New York and
Pahs made up the market for La Gazette du Bon Ton. In Paris, they were known as the grand bourgeoisie.
Those who considered themselves to be particularly fashion-minded in either city might have ordered a
subscription. However, what was their gender? According to Valerie Steele, during the early nineteenth
century fashion magazines were aimed at both men and women and they illustrated fashion designs for
both. However, by the middle of the century, these publications were increasingly directed toward
women.1 This was around the time that Charles Baudelaire’s 1863 essay. “ The Painter of Modem Life,”
was published in installments in the Figaro newspaper in Paris where he began to define modernity in the
following terms:
‘ “ By ‘modernity’ I mean the ephemeral, the fugitive, the contingent, the half of art whose
other half is the eternal and the immutable ’2
I am not suggesting that there is a one-to-one relationship between magazines increasingly directed
toward women and Baudelaire’s description o f modernity described in terms of stereotypicaliy feminine
qualities published around the same time. However, I am suggesting that there might have been parallel
modes of thought about the relationship between fashion and gender interacting at various levels of the
culture of Paris at that time.
Also at this time, two sexualized “personalities" came into being during the late nineteenth and
early twentieth century— -the period characterized by Baudelaire as “modem.” These two character
types—the prostitute (female) and the dandy, or JJdneur (male)—have also been associated with
modernity. The term “modernity” was used to describe qualities of life that were specific to that time and
noticeably different G rom that which had existed before. Both the prostitute and the JJdneur were
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24
associated with the activity of strolling the street. As a result, all women, especially middle-class
housewives or working women, could not stroll the streets without risking being associated with a
prostitute. Although the La Gazette's higher class female reader would have been more difficult to confuse
with women of lower classes, perhaps La Gazette could have provided a venue for upper-class women to
avoid that confusion all together and the generalized anxiety in society associated with it La Gazette s
female subscribers could view (or ‘ ‘ browse” through) new couture collections from the comfort of a private
space such as their own home. They still ventured out to their couturiers for social engagement or a
fitting, while middle and working-class women shopped at the confusing and sexualized realm of the
department store, but perhaps La Gazette gave them an option to participate in these activities without
having to emerge into the public sphere.
According to Baudelaire, woman (and fashion) offered, "a means to understand the elusive
nature of modem urban life.”3 He associated the ephemeral with qualities of women and the eternal with
that of man. Baudelaire claimed that women and fashion offer, “a means to understand the elusive nature
of modern urban life.”4 He celebrated women’s preoccupations with fashion and adornment.
Architectural historian, Mary McLeod, has also explained how fashion has played a dual role since the
late nineteenth century. The dividing line has been based on gender. Definitions of fashion contradict each
other if considered in terms of women’s fashion or men’s fashion. Fashion in the context of women is
“frivolous, unfunctional, and wasteful, the antithesis of rationality and simplicity.”3 On the other hand,
men’s fashion symbolizes just the opposite. It is considered functional, timeless, and international. The
dandy epitomized the qualities o f men’s fashion and the voyeuristic activities of men.
Dandyism
...He [the fldneur] is looking for that quality which you must allow me to call
‘modernity’; for I know of no better word to express the idea I have in mind. He makes
it his business to extract from fashion whatever element it may contain of poetry within
history, to distil the eternal from the transitory.6
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25
Although the dandy, or fldneur. has been commonly thought about in terms of late nineteenth-
century society, Keith Tester, editor of a 1994 book of essays on the fldneur, has asserted that this
character—or one like him—has appeared at other points in history. He writes,
Originally, the figure of the fldneur was tied to a specific time and place:
Paris, the capital of the nineteenth century as it was conjured by Walter
Benjamin in his analysis of Charles Baudelaire (Benjamin 1983). But the
fldneur has been allowed, or made, to take a number of walks away from the
streets and arcades of nineteenth-century Paris. Not least, the figure and the
activity appear regularly in the attempts of social and cultural commentators
to get some grip on the nature and implications of the conditions of
modernity.. . 7
I would like to "allow” another walk away from the streets of the nineteenth century to the streets o f the
1910s and 1920s in Paris.
Tester suggested that the literature on fldneurie needed to be further developed from regular but
brief mention of this character as "one, who strolls,” or “a man of the crowd.” He asserts that his book
raised questions such as: "Do we have to walk the streets to indulge in such fldneurie?' or “How might
fldneurie be possible from the safety of dining tables?” If these questions were applied to a consideration
o f fldneurie (or dandyism), men could have also been potential readers of La Gazette du Bon Ton. I
propose that La Gazette could have been a means by which fldneurie might have been "possible from the
safety of dining tables,”8 If the dandy could afford the price of the subscription—which ultimately reached
$32.00 per year and $4.00 a copy in 1921 before being taken over and “cheapened” by Condg Nast in
19229 —His issue would have been delivered to his home. If he desired, he could have sat down at his
dining room table and taken in delightful images of couturie as well as articles that discussed the
fashionable dress and activities of the day.
For example, the February issue of 1914 he could read articles such as: “Sur le Costume Tailleur
(p. 49)” “Le Gout au Thdatre (p. 65),” or look at a pochoir illustration like “La Stance de P o r tr a it(pi.
14) which shows a robe by Worth for the afternoon (robe d'aprts-midi de Worth). The illustration
presents a woman modeling clothes. On the left-hand side of the image the hands of someone paints her
portrait are visible holding a brush to a canvas that rests on an easel. A section of the painter’s legs also
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
26
creep into the composition. There are landscapes visible on the wall behind her, possibly a window or a
painting its not clear. Through La Gazette, the dandy could be a voyeur stationed inside his home.
Prostitution
Prostitution was the female counterpart to the male in the public sphere. Very different than the
proceeding activities in nature, prostitution became a widespread problem at this time. In an attempt to
control "immoral” behavior and the spread of disease, French authorities attempted to regulate the
practice by a systems of maisons de toUrance.1 0 Whether or not this was a successful plan, another
problem emerged. Prostitutes or demimondaines Mended in with the majority of middle class bourgeois
society who, themselves, were both attracted and repelled by the practice. Because of this inability to
distinguish prostitutes from other women, a greater sensitivity t f > the categorization of women developed
amongst the general public. Perceptions of bourgeois and woririfig-class women became split between
woman as housewife and woman as harlot. These perceptions were primarily based on visual cues.
Women who worked, like those who appeared in public without a man af the cafe, the theater, on the
street, or even shopping at a department store were associated with prouicuics. These "locations” were
common public spaces for women tjiereby rendering it difficult to distinguish between the "harlots and the
housewives”1 1 or simply working-class women. This situation became a sohrce of anxiety for people,
thereby creating a somewhat defensive need to define types and classes— especially of women with mote
verve. The elite migh^ have felt the need to increasingly distance themselves from this problem, asserting
their class more emphatically to assuage the insecurity of the community over this confusion. The middle-
class could enforce these distinctions via repression of desires that had the potential to seep into the sexual
realm. Policemen, judges, lawyers, and other professionals could attempt to repress their own desires and
the desires of the community through their job. However, the elite, presumably, wanting to distance
themselves from the lower classes (including the professional class) overall did not possess such literal
professional means. Instead, one option would have been for them to assert their own elite status,
sublimating any desires into material goods—as did female shoppers—but goods with the value
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27
paralleling their class such as luxury items—couture goods that would not be found in department stores
in Paris. Thus elite women would not have to share the public space of the bourgeois, risking
identification with other women. Elite women shopped in semi-private or discriminating spaces of the
maisons du couture.
1 Steele, Valerie, Paris Fashion: A Cultural History, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), p. 116.
2 Charles Baudelaire, The Painter o f Modem U fe and Other Essays, [Jonathan Mayne, Trans, and Ed.],
(London: Phaidon Press Limited, 1964,199S), p. 12.
1 Mary McLeod, “Undressing Architecture: Fashion, Gender, and Modernity,” in Architecture: In
Fashion. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Architectural Press, 1994), p.43.
4 McLeod, “Undressing Architecture.. ” p. 43.
5 McLeod, “Undressing Architecture.. p. 39.
6 Charles Baudelaire, The Painter o f Modem Life and Other Essays, [Jonathan Mayne, Trans, and E d),
(London: Phaidon Press Limited, 1964,199S, 2n d Edition), p. 12.
7 Keith Tester, The Fldneur, (London and New York: Routledge, 1994), p. 1 .
I Ibid. p. 1 .
9 The January 1914, issue of Gazette du Bon Ton stated prices for subscriptions (abonnement) as the
following: in France=100 francs; outside of France=110 francs; 10 francs were charged per copy (prix du
numiro=lO francs).
1 0 Jill Forbes and Michael Kelly, Eds. French Cultural Studies: An Introduction, (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1993), p. 43.
II Jill Forbes and Michael Kelly, Eds. French Cultural Studies:, p. 44.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Chapter Fou r
28
B on Ton
I have discussed the fact that La Gazette du Bon Ton was n3i"w< “ bon ton” and suggested that this
was in order to position the journal and its contents nestled between antithetical characteristics of fashion
and art: luxurious, yet pared down; cutting edge, yet classic; eternal, yet new or transitory. Perhaps, the
tension between the two categories— art and fashion—is in reality an essential feature of modernism.
In the first issue of La Gazette du Bon Ton: Arts, Modes, et Frivotttis issued in 1912, Henry
Bidou, a contributor, announced to his high society readers that La Gazette would exude the spirit of “bon
ton”. 'According to Shane Adler Davis, "The title of the revue was selected to symbolize La Gazette du
Bon Ton’s philosophy.” By naming the journal, “Bon Ton,” Lucien Vogel resisted situating La Gazette in
either the category of fashion or art, trying to keep one foot in each arena, advancing the qualities
associated with both.
As discussed in chapter one, couturiers' designs featured in La Gazette would increase in value if
the fashions were associated with other objects of value. Couturiers were becoming desperate because their
“brand name(s)” were being tarnished due to the production of cheap copies that were showing up in
department stores in America and Paris. Couturiers needed to assert the classical features of their products
in an attempt to substantiate their value, but of course, they also wanted to be “in vogue. ” They wanted
their designs to be considered on the same level as art, and they needed to keep fueling the fashion cycle by
cranking out new designs and by convincing their customers that one couture dress—no matter how
classic—was not enough.
On many levels. La Gazette intended to herald in fashion, but only examples of a very high quality
and value. As presented in this paper, the Gazette was utilized as a subtle marketing tool in the hopes of
elevating their designs of couturiers to the status of art. But, in order for it to work, the journal would have
to maintain this image too. Vogel and the contributors not only projected this ideal of “bon ton," via the
spirit of the form and content of the magazine, they also explicitly stated it outright. They set out to create
an ideal—whether attainable or not—by trying to possess all of qualities they needed while ignoring the
contradictory elements of “art” and “fashion” that come with the definition of “bon to a ”
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
29
A contributor and colleague of Locien Vogel, Henri Bidou, explained this quality called “bon
ton” in the first issue of La Gazette appropriately called, "Le Bon Ton.” Due to the fact that couturiers tried
to assert their classical qualities—qualities that normally associated with ait, but not fashion. According to
Bidou,
“In order to b e "bon ton," it is not enough to be elegant...Elegance changes: "le bon ton"
never varies; it follows fashion, it follows taste. "L e bon ton" is by no means aloof, and
yet it likes reserve, it is not at all tasteless, and yet it is modest. It isn’ t gaudy, and yet it is
free. . .The adornment of women is a pleasure to the eye that is not inferior to the other
arts... l a Gazette du Bon Ton will be the expression of this art ”2
Interestingly, Bidou imbued the word “elegance” with a temporal definition usually reserved for
the word “fashion.” He also manipulated the word “fashion” by suggesting that “le bon ton,” a quality that,
according to him “never varies,” was capable of “fi>llow(ing] fashion,” a quality that is ever-changing by its
nature. Bidou also complicated the issue in La Gazette by using the contradictory words and definitions of
art and fashion practically interchangeably, calling into question the relationship between art and fashion.
This instability is a recurring phenomenon.
In a 1978 essay about Lucien Vogel, Shane Adler Davis also embraced this seemingly impossible
ideal of "le bon ton " without much question. He articulated the meaning of “bon ton” put forth by Vogel
through La Gazette. But, Davis failed to question or challenge it stating that, “Never before or since has a
revue of fashion better presented it as an art, or better displayed the artistic qualities of fashion.”3 Whether
or not this is tree of La Gazette. Davis’ statement does not call attention to a larger issue that emerged—the
problematic contradictions between these two realms: art and fashion and their relationship to the modern
period within which the journal was born.
There is a tension between art and fashion that parallels similar tensions between the complex and
paradoxical definition of modernity as expressed by theorists such as Charles Baudelaire and Georg
Simmel. and that stems from colliding dichotomies. Baudelaire discussed modernity in terms of artifice and
femininity— -qualities associated with woman. However, these qualities are in direct opposition to n a tu re -
one of many associations of woman. Georg Simmel categorized both of the opposing practices of imitation
and differentiation in society under a rubric of fashion. David Frisby, in an essay about Simmel,
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
30
emphasized that the neurasthenia aroused by vacillation between imitation and differentiation is a central
experience of modernity
The notion of “ bon ton” contains tensions that behave in a similar way. “Bon ton” was invented
and implemented in order to achieve several goals, all in a discreet fashion. “Bon ton” was associated with
the upper class, but Henri Bidou’s essay emphasized to the reader that “bon ton” “ ...loves to be discreet. It
loves to be reserved... It is m odest... It has a sense of grace and beauty, but it is not going to brag.”4
Repeatedly, the notion of “bon ton” sought a precarious balance between these types of contradictory
notions. In this sense, “bon ton” is much like modernism—the unstable contradictions are its most
prominent characteristics.
‘ Henri Bidou, "Le Bon Ton,” Gazette du Bon Ton, 1, (1912), p. 2.
tran slatio n by Davis of Henri Bidou's essay for inaugural issue of La Gazette du Bon Ton, in Davis, p.74.
3 Shane Adler Davis, “Lucien Vogel,” p.74.
4 Henri Bidou, “Le Bon Ton,” p. 2-3. (My translation.)
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Conclusion
3i
Perhaps, for modernity, fashion is simply the figure of instability which, by its
reification, is constituted as the “other” of the desire for an originaiy, and supposedly
stable, premodem past.1
One of the most striking conclusions to emerge out of this examination of the French fashion
journal, La Gazette du Bon Ton: Arts, Modes, Frtvolitis is not a specific characteristic or theme, but,
instead, an overall resistance to such a characterization. After broaching possible answers to the following
question: “W h a t is La Gazette du Bon Ton?" many contradictory definitions rose to the surface. As I
have pointed out, it was simultaneously defined in several formal and conceptual ways. The pochoir prints
inside its pages weave in and out of definitions of art and illustration, suggesting the characteristics of one
of these categories and then later negating them. La Gazette resists being categorized as either end of the
following dichotomies: “Were the producers of the prints artists or designers?” “Was the Gazette a
magazine or marketing strategy?" “Did their editorial purpose purvey temporal trends or perpetuate an
eternal model of finery?” Were its means conventional or idiosyncratic?” “Did the publication embrace
the new or the classier La Gazette vacillates between these dichotomies denying a firm conclusion and
demanding a more subtle definition, if allowing one to be made at all. Any characterization is, at some
point, rendered unstable. The strongest example of the validity of this hypothesis rests in the way the
journal defined itself—“bon ton.”
The most prominent and consistent characteristic to emerge out of this examination and analysis
of La Gazette is this overwhelming instability. Instability, itself, has ultimately been the conclusion of
each inquiry whether or not the material at hand discusses a minute element of the history of this journal,
such as specific characterizations of formal elements, or an overarching attempt to situate La Gazette in
the history of France, the history of Parisian haute couture, or even a topic as grandiose as the history of
modernity. In fact, it is this quality of instability that forges a strong link between the journal and a
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
32
definition of modernity They share this central characteristic. La Gazette invented “bon ton” and was the
primary interest in which it played itself out. Whether acting as a marketing tool or a historical document
, La Gazette appears to have also participated—willingly or unwillingly—in the continuing struggle to
define modernity.
As mentioned, La Gazette du Bon Ton has been contemplated with little depth or frequency in
the literature of fashion and the arts in this period. When it has been considered, it has fallen quite flat. I
have only begun to determine its implications for the history of modernity as it relates to fashion and early
twentieth century Parisian society. I hope I have suggested some hypotheses and asked some new
questions that will be taken up again and explored in further detail.
1 Paulette Singley and Deborah Fausch, '‘Introduction," Architecture: In Fashion. (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton Architectural Press, 1994). p. 24.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
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"La Gazette du Bon Ton: Arts, Modes, and Frivolites": An analysis of fashion and modernity through the lens of a French journal de luxe
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