Journal des Dames et des Modes

1912. 1st Edition. Soft cover. Fine. FIRST EDITION OF ALL 79 ISSUES, WITH 186 HAND-COLORED PLATES by some of the most famous artists of the era. Number 884 (each issue from the same set) of only 1250 sets on Holland paper (out of a total edition of 1279). IN ORIGINAL WRAPPERS IN FINE CONDITION. "The Journal des Dames et des Modes lasted only two years (the first issue appeared on 1 June 1912, and the last on 1 August 1914). This stylish periodical was issued regularly three times a month, and ceased publication upon the outbreak of the First World War. With its expensive layout, its society columns, its poetic texts, its colourful annotations, and its fashion reports, it represented the last brilliant, refined, impartial, and aestheticizing impulse of a happy and optimistic society occupying the centre of the stage in the period that has aptly been called the 'belle époque'... 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.

"Every issue carefully reviewed all the current novelties of fashion, [and] every issue carried coloured stencil prints reproducing the latest conceptions of the fashion designers." For the text, "the magazine could count on the collaboration of the best known writers and littérateurs of the time," including Henri Duvernois, Marcel Boulenger, Paul Margueritte, Jean Cocteau, and many others. The artistic contributions "included the works of some outstanding artists and many promising young ones. Most frequent in his appearance, and outstanding for the quality of his illustrations, was Georges Barbier." Other artists included Léon Bakst, Bernard Boutet de Monvel, Umberto Brunelleschi, H. Robert Dammy, Paul Iribe, Charles Martin, and Fernand Siméon. (Christina Nuzzi, Parisian Fashion from the "Journal des Dames et des Modes"). Note: all 186 plates are present, numbered 1-184 with two unnumbered plates.

Paris: 1912-1914. Octavo, each issue loose as issued in original wrappers, inserted loosely into four half-yearly plus one supplemental original large wrappers. A few plates with spots but generally exceptionally clean, dampstaining to edges of five issue wrappers. A nearly immaculate set, exceedingly scarce in original wrappers.