Life, 1911-08-24 · page 11 of 40
Life — August 24, 1911 — page 11: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This satirical article mocks French fashion designers for copying Life magazine's exclusive costume designs. The illustration shows a caricatured figure (appears to be a French spy or designer) stealing from an ornate pedestal labeled "LIFE." The text claims that Life designed an original costume for elderly women featuring a "white batiste Mother Hubbard" and elaborate details. A French spy allegedly saw it before publication and began copying it for Parisian fashion houses. The satire ridicules the irony that France—traditionally the world's fashion leader—now depends on stealing American designs. Life boasts that their Fashion Reform League will protect future designs through strict security measures and wax molds, preventing imitation. The piece humorously presents American fashion innovation as worthy of industrial espionage.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“LIFE: 299 Dastardly Attempt to Steal Our Designs Paris Spy Succeeds in Copying Latest Model of Life's Fashion Reform League, and Which Is Now Being Flaunted Abroad—Suck Attempts in Future Will Be Frustrated—Have Your Own Reproduction Made and Placed On File—Elderly Ladies Will Now Come to Their Own A W costume of ours, designed for elderly ladies to wear at roof gardens, consists of a white batiste Mother Hubbard of sea-green taffeta, cut pajama-like, with a jupe colette violet velvet under- pinning, sea-green sandals, flounced with metal trimmings in oyster shades and a panel of change- able fringe of corded silk with kahki belt studded with diamonds and pearls; the whole topped off by ilor hat with a two-inch crown and a rim seven feet and one-cighth of an inch in diameter, trimmed with hot house grapes and imported tarantulas. We wish to state that this original costume, de- signed purely for our American patrons, and in- tended to be worn only in this country, was acci- dentally seen by a French spy, who has been trying to obtain access to our designing room, and even be- fore we had finished it was being worn at the race track in Paris and in other French resorts. Moreover, the French are now claiming it as one of their own creation, and several of our leading importers have had the ef- frontery to offer it to their customers as an original Paris style. Nothing could, of course, be more compli- mentary to Lire’s Fashion Reform League: Is the fact that for the first time in the history of our country we are not de- pendent upon other nations, but that other nations are actually and secretly copying us; and, indeed, that the very nation which has ways led the world is now obliged to spy upon some of our superb artists It also leads us to say that hereafter we 1 be more careful in the preparation of Workmen are now engaged in putting a high barbed-wire fence all around Lire Park (formerly Central), so that no one but our regular accredited patrons can enter Furthermore, our first design will not be fitted personally to the customer. We will take measurements, make the design secretly. and when it is entirely finished deliver it com- plete. As we have a fac-simile of the figure of every one, made with our celebrated wax molds, there will be no difficulty on this score These wax molds are, by the wa idea with this League, and having ed are duly protected. On applica lays in advance we take an accurate plaster cast of your figure; from this we make a wax reproduction mounted on rollers. Any of our patrons can therefore see themselves as : ye cops! AND I'VE STRUGGLED ALL, others sce them, If you gain in weight, we TO REACH this spread a patch over the place where it would it rev a new The man who has “ arri MY Lt comicbooks.com