Vesper. Robes du soir, de Worth (pl.60, La Gazette du Bon ton, 1922 n°8)

Original color print heightened with gold, printed on laid paper, signed at bottom left of the plate.
La Gazette du bon ton, one of the most beautiful and influential fashion magazines of the 20th century, celebrating the talent of French creators and artists at the height of the Art Deco movement.
Famous fashion magazine founded in 1912 by Lucien Vogel, La Gazette du bon ton was published until 1925 with an interruption during the War from 1915 to 1920, due to the mobilization of its editor-in-chief. It comprises 69 issues printed in only 2000 copies and is illustrated notably with 573 color plates and 148 sketches representing models by great couturiers. From their publication, these luxurious publications "addressed bibliophiles and worldly aesthetes" (Françoise Tétart-Vittu "La Gazette du bon ton" in Dictionnaire de la mode, 2016). Printed on fine laid paper, they use a typeface specially created for the magazine by Georges Peignot, the Cochin character, adopted in 1946 by Christian Dior. The prints are created using the metal pochoir technique, heightened in colors and for some highlighted with gold or palladium.
The adventure begins in 1912 when Lucien Vogel, man of society and fashion - he had already participated in the magazine Femina - decides to found with his wife Cosette de Brunhoff (sister of Jean, the father of Babar) the Gazette du bon ton whose subtitle was then "Art, modes et frivolités". Georges Charensol reports the words of the editor-in-chief: "En 1910, observe-t-il, il n'existait aucun journal de mode véritablement artistique et représentatif de l'esprit de son époque. Je songeais donc à faire un magazine de luxe avec des artistes véritablement modernes [...] J'étais certain du succès car pour la mode aucun pays ne peut rivaliser avec la France." ["In 1910, he observes, there was no truly artistic fashion journal representative of the spirit of its time. I therefore thought of making a luxury magazine with truly modern artists [...] I was certain of success because in fashion no country can rival France."] ("Un grand éditeur d'art. Lucien Vogel" in Les Nouvelles littéraires, n°133, mai 1925). The magazine's success was immediate, not only in France, but also in the United States and South America.
Originally, Vogel thus assembled a group of seven artists: André-Édouard Marty and Pierre Brissaud, followed by Georges Lepape and Dammicourt; and finally his friends from the École des beaux-arts who were George Barbier, Bernard Boutet de Monvel, and Charles Martin. Other talents quickly joined the team: Guy Arnoux, Léon Bakst, Benito, Boutet de Monvel, Umberto Brunelleschi, Chas Laborde, Jean-Gabriel Domergue, Raoul Dufy, Édouard Halouze, Alexandre Iacovleff, Jean Émile Laboureur, Charles Loupot, Charles Martin, Maggie Salcedo. These artists, mostly unknown when Lucien Vogel called upon them, would subsequently become emblematic and sought-after artistic figures. These same illustrators created the drawings for the Gazette's advertisements.
The plates highlight and sublimate the dresses of seven creators of the period: Lanvin, Doeuillet, Paquin, Poiret, Worth, Vionnet and Doucet. The couturiers provided exclusive models for each issue. Nevertheless, some of the illustrations show no real model, but only the illustrator's idea of contemporary fashion.
La Gazette du bon ton is a decisive step in fashion history. Combining aesthetic standards and visual unity, it brought together for the first time the great talents from the worlds of arts, letters and fashion and established, through this alchemy, a completely new image of women, slender, independent and bold, also carried by the new generation of couturiers Coco Chanel, Jean Patou, Marcel Rochas...
Acquired in 1920 by Condé Montrose Nast, the Gazette du bon ton would largely inspire the new composition and aesthetic choices of the "dying little journal" that Nast had purchased a few years earlier: Vogue magazine.