Life, 1913-02-27 · page 36 of 40
Life — February 27, 1913 — page 36: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a **full-page advertisement**, not satire—it promotes Vogue magazine's fashion patterns and services to aspirational women readers. The page emphasizes that Vogue-dressed women occupy social superiority: they possess "taste above the commonplace," wear fashions *before* they become popular ("leads the fashion—never follows it"), and avoid embarrassing outdatedness. The pitch is explicitly class-based—Vogue's Paris correspondents and New York editors filter out "passing caprice" and "eccentric" fads, ensuring only worthy fashions reach readers. The ad promotes Vogue's pattern service, positioning it as affordable access to haute couture: women can now replicate expensive Parisian designs at home, or hire dressmakers using Vogue's patterns. The closing line claims users will be "dressed as smartly" as wealthy Parisians without their expense. This reflects early 20th-century consumer culture, where magazines monetized middle-class aspirations for upper-class appearance and status through mail-order patterns and advice.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
The woman with taste above the commonplace, who realizes the iniportance of dress, will find in the fashions of Vogue just that nice touch of individuality that distinguishes always the faultlessly gowned. Next to this distinctiveness, the most im- portant quality of Vogue's fashions is their timeliness. No sooner is a new cut in skirt, sleeve or bodice launched by one of the accepted couturiers of Paris than it is noted by Vogue. Hence, long before a model has reached the “popular” stage, the woman who depends upon Vogue for her gowning has secured it, worn it in the first season of its triumph, and is ready to discard when finally it finds favor with the masses. A Vogue-gowned woman, therefore, never finds herself in the suddenly embarrassing position of trailing behind the mode. She leads the fashion—never follows it. Thirdly, and even more important, perhaps, than either distinctiveness or timeliness, is Vogue's correctness. With its reliable resident correspondents in European Capitals, and its alert and discriminating staff of New York editors, Vogue eliminates for you the passing caprice—the_ merely odd and eccentric being unprofitable fads of the moment; a gives only such things as are worth your while. Vogue Patterns of the New Mode NUMBER NOW ON SALE Every season—all through the year, in fact—Vogue is a constant panorama of the new modes. From among these scores of models are cted every issue a few designs for the regular pattern service. These are kept in stock ready to mail. Not only does Vogue have this regular Pattern Service, but in addition it is always glad to have cut to your order a special in- dividual pattern—the only one, perhaps, ever made from that particular design— of any costume illustrated anywhere in any number of Vogue. Through this Pattern Service—regular and special—all the new ideas of the season are yours in a pattern so simple and direct that you yourself can follow its construction with ease, or turn it over to a small dressmaker or tailor with the assurance that your costume will have that indescribable quality which for lack of a better word is so often termed “smart.” You might spend an entire season in Paris, haunting the showrooms of the great de- signers—even with unlimited means at your disposal, and yet might not be dressed as smartly and becomingly as you can by using Vogue and Vogue patterns. On all newsstands Try it for yourself. Get this pattern number from your newsdealer—and, by the tell him to reserve for you_the three Special numbers that follow it: the Dress Materials number, the Spring Millinery number and the Spring Fashions number—a trio that you can hardly afford to do without. | ConDE Nast Publisher 25 Cents a Copy, $4.00 a Year VOGUE, 443 Fourth Ave., New York one comicbooks.com