Let’s start at the very beginning

When I was looking at fabrics in Vogue Pattern Books last week I spotted something which I hadn't noticed before - each issue has a number. Over the years, the pattern book has varied between four and six issues per year, but I calculated that issue one should have been Spring 1949.

This one

Of course, the publication existed long before 1949. My earliest copies are from the 1930s, when it appeared six times a year, attached to the then fortnightly Vogue magazine as a supplement.

The 16 May 1934 issue and its Pattern Book

In 1940 Vogue changed to publishing monthly to save paper, but the Pattern Book supplement remained.

November 1940 Vogue Pattern Book

At some point later in the war, however, it was absorbed into the main magazine.

September 1946 Vogue, "Includes Vogue Pattern Book" at bottom left. Image © Kerry Taylor Auctions

September 1946 Vogue, Pattern Book section. Image © Kerry Taylor Auctions

This was still the case in 1948, when Mrs Exeter appeared on the cover of the September issue.

September 1948 Vogue, again "Includes Vogue Pattern Book" at bottom left

I have a (slightly damaged) copy of the Spring 1949 Vogue Pattern Book, and had previously wondered from the editorial if it was the first issue of the standalone magazine.

Contents and editorial

Sure enough, when I looked at the small print, there it is.

"No 1" is right at the bottom, click to enlarge

The magazine is smaller than the old version (posssibly Vogue was smaller than the pre-war version, too) and had its own editor, Winifred Pegler. Audrey Withers, Vogue's then editor, frankly admitted that she had very little interest in fashion, so it would have made no sense for her to have edited a magazine devoted solely to making clothes.

Size comparison

The only full-colour printing is on the covers. The back cover and the inside covers are all given over to full-page advertisements for fabrics.

Inside front cover

Inside back cover

Back cover

There is some colour printing elsewhere, but it is limited to one or two colours.

Black and white illustration

Colour illustration

There are also photographs.

Full-page photograph for a couturier pattern

Mrs Exeter doesn't make an appearance, but there is a feature on items for a "young wardrobe".

"A red coat is a tonic to any young wardrobe"

I was surprised to see trousers, well "tailored slacks", making an appearance so early.

Separates for evening

Velveteen slacks may have been suitable for evening entertaining at home, but not everything was so casual. The feature on making luxury lingerie to keep in your "sachet-scented drawers" made me feel very lax in my ways!

Slips, housecoats, nightdresses and negligées

The article on different types of material is a real history lesson, fabrics such are barathea, faille and moire are hardly ever heard of now.

Fabrics and their properties

The fabric adverts on the covers are the only advertising to appear in the entire issue, which makes me very curious about the financial model of this new venture: it's more like an extended sales pitch for Vogue Patterns than an actual magazine. I shall have to browse later issues to see how and when advertising starts to creep in, but that's a subject for a future post.