Gazette du bon ton
Ten plates per issue (numbered I–X), that is 80 color plates printed outside the text by lithography or zincography and hand-colored by pochoir, three of them double-page, together with numerous further drawings and sketches within the text, also printed in color for these first two years.
A fine collection of the first 8 issues (November 1912 – March–June 1913) of the celebrated review, in perfect condition, handsomely bound at the time by the Terquem firm. This family business, located at the corner of Boulevard Haussmann and rue Scribe, had offered since the late nineteenth century everything the book lover might need: “a highly versatile enterprise, closely connected to the learned circles of the time, which by the end of the nineteenth century gives an idea of what a diversified yet highly targeted ‘large business’ could be, catering essentially to men of letters and wealthy bourgeois clients” (B. Hugonnard-Roche, Bibliomane Moderne, online, September 2016). Terquem sold filing furniture, high-end stationery, and, above all, the small revolving mahogany bookcases that made its fortune and reputation. It also offered a department for fine illustrated books and a “luxury binding” service — almost certainly the path taken by this copy: issues of the review for which this luxuriously executed binding was specially commissioned.
Ten plates per issue (numbered I–X), that is 80 color plates printed outside the text by lithography or zincography and hand-colored by pochoir, three of them double-page, together with numerous further drawings and sketches within the text, also printed in color for these first two years.
A remarkable testament to French taste and the art of living during the années folles. 1912 was a decisive year in the history of the fashion press: the meeting of the fin-de-siècle poets’ nostalgia with the graphic sensibility of a new generation of cultivated artists gave (re)birth to several publications aimed at bibliophiles and aesthetes of society: Le Journal des dames et des modes, directed by d’Annunzio’s secretary and the scholar Pierre de Nouvion; Modes et Manières d’aujourd’hui by Pierre Corrard and Jules Meynial; and, above all, La Gazette du bon ton, the fruit of the collaboration between Lucien Vogel and his brother-in-law Michel de Brunhoff.
This luxurious review, founded in 1912, continued publication until 1925. After the war, having lost its subscribers in Germany and Russia, it was acquired by Condé Montrose Nast, then distributor of the American magazine Vogue, who appointed Vogel as its artistic director. Vogel in turn brought several illustrators to the New York review — notably Benito, Lepape and Marty — who infused something of the spirit of the Gazette du bon ton into the layout and covers of the famous American magazine.
Vogel called on writers such as Jean Besnard, Henry Bidou, Lise Léon-Blum, René Blum, Marcel Boulenger, Albert Flament, Franc-Nohain, Émile Henriot, Gabriel Mourey, Henri de Régnier, Jean Silvère and Jean-Louis Vaudoyer. For the illustrations, he turned to painters and draughtsmen, some unconnected with the world of couture, to present fashion accessories, dresses and costumes “in situation,” along with the creations of great couture houses such as Louise Chéruit, Georges Doeuillet, Jacques Doucet, Jeanne Paquin, Paul Poiret and Charles Worth. Among these artists were Léon Bakst, Boutet de Monvel, Pierre Brissaud, Carlègle, Jacques Drésa, Javier Gosé, Georges Lepape, André Édouard Marty, Louis Strimpl and Maurice Taquoy.
Colas, 1202; “a very rare set, the most important and most interesting for contemporary fashion” (Carteret).