Life, 1911-11-30 · page 38 of 40
Life — November 30, 1911 — page 38: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is primarily a **mail-order advertisement**, not political satire. It promotes Vogue magazine's Christmas gift-shopping service—a convenience offering where busy shoppers (particularly women living far from New York) could browse Vogue's catalog of recommended gifts and have the magazine handle purchasing and delivery. The illustration shows a silhouetted figure reviewing Vogue's "Christmas Gifts Number." The pitch emphasizes **labor-saving** benefits: avoiding crowded holiday stores, making selections at home, and accessing metropolitan shops' curated selections even in small towns. The service costs nothing; customers only paid 25 cents for the catalog. Vogue itself ($4/year subscription) is promoted as an ideal gift for "women of discrimination." This reflects **early 20th-century consumer culture** values: convenience, expertise curation, and mail-order shopping as modern progress—particularly appealing to women excluded from easy retail access or time-constrained by holiday duties.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Let VOGUE do your Christmas Shopping OU are invited to let Vocue Ye your Christmas shopping. This means that you will be spared every particle of the actual effort and trouble usually associated with the holiday shop- ping season. You will not have to await your turn to be waited upon in crowded shops—you will not have to make your selections from a perplexing assortment of good, bad and indifferent offerings. On the contrary, you wiil make your selections in the quiet of your own home, and from a carefully edited list of the best articles offered this year by the leading shops of New York, And when your selections are made, VocuE will attend to the purchase and transpor- tation of the gifts you desire to buy. ‘There is no charge whatever for this service—it is offered free of cost to every reader of Vocur. Merely secure the Christmas Gifts Number of Vocue. It contains illustrations and descriptions, with prices, of the most acceptable gifts to be had in New York for men, women and children. Approximately twelve hundred Chri mas gifts are pictured and described in this number. Select at leisure the things that will appeal most to your friends, and then let Vocur buy them and send them to you. Reduced black and white facsimile of cover design, Christmas Gifts Number. OGUE’S Christmas offer has been especially appreci- ated in the past by women who live at a distance from New York, To women living near the metropolis this service is a con- venience—to women living at a distance it solves the entire Christ- mas gift problem. If you live in a small town, your choice of Christmas presents is limited to a few articles which you cannot help feeling that all your friends have already seen, and priced. But by Jetting Vocue do your shopping, you bring to your very door the best metropolitan shops, brimming with gifts which none of your friends can possibly have seen. You will do your shopping in New York, and the recipients of your gifts will be quick to know and appreciate your resourcefulness. Secure without fail the Christmas Gifts Number of Vocur. It can be had from your newsdealer, or we will send it to you direct on receipt of twenty-five cents. With this num- ber of Vocue in hand, you will make this Christmas a memorable one for your friends, and you will also save yourself an almost incredible amount of expense, trouble and worry. Get the Christmas Gifts Number of Vocug to-day, To save yourself time, trouble and expense—to make Christmas shopping, both easy and satisfactory—you should secure immedi- ately your copy of the Christmas Gifts Number of VOGUE. VOGUE as a Christmas Gift VocueE itself makes a splendid Christmas gift—probably the very best you can give to every woman of discrimina- tion on your Christmas list. To send Vocue for one year to a friend, merely clip the attached coupon, fill in her name and yours and mail to us with four dollars. Your friend’s subscription will begin with Vocue dated January first, appearing December twenty-sixth and we will send her a_ special Vocue Christmas Card to announce the coming of your gift. Vocve, 443 Fourth Avenue, New York. For the remittance of four dollars enclosed, please send VocvE for one year as my Christmas gift to Name of recipient Street ____ ——$—$$_____ City. State_ Your special Christmas card is to be received by her on Christmas morning. Name of sender - Address ee B Tobog lin P. 4 so cent: The ly Mrs Pab. Ce As (Broads The 1 Mel