著者

平芳 裕子

出版者

美学会

雑誌

美学 (ISSN:05200962)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.60, no.2, pp.84-97, 2009

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The women's magazine Godey's Lady's Book was launched in Philadelphia in 1837 by Louis A. Godey. Although it enjoyed great popularity due to its original fashion plates, the fact that they were a topic of intense discussion is largely unknown. In this paper, I attempt to shed light on how the magazine legitimized the plates by researching distinctive fashion imagery and engaging in ongoing discussions over a ten-year period. In studying the magazine's editorial notes, I discovered that some readers had actually been quite critical of the plates. To counter those who were against fashion, however, the magazine printed positive comments from female readers, and stories depicting virtuous women who remained unaffected by trends. Moreover, as the magazine emphasized the decorative nature of the plates, fashion came to be connected to ornamentation; and as such, an appropriate part of a woman's role as a homemaker. In this era prior to the advent of the fashion magazine in the U.S., by promoting the plates as "authentic fashion," Godey's Lady's Book established the position of the fashion plate in women's magazines.