Figure 1.--These boys' summer suits were depicted in "Queens" on August 30, 1873. At the time, the magazine was running fashion plates from Paris so these outfits may be considered French rather than English. Society fashions, however, were more international than the clothings actually worn by ordinary children.

The Queen Magazine was one of several English fashion magazines that were strongly influenced by French magazines. This is in part because fshion magzines primarily focused on women's fashions. One of the most important English magazines was the The Queen Magazine. It primarily focused on ladies fashions, but had some information about children's fashion as well. Quuen was founded by Samuel Beeton (1861). It was as the name suggest from the beginning a magazine for ladies, but not at first a fashion magazine. Beeton founded a a weekly society newspaper with very limited fashion information. Beeton focused on high society and covered London social events in detail. There were also articles on occupations, literature, and other inoffensive amusements considered to be suitable for proper ladies. The full original title of Beeton's magazine title was The Queen, the Ladies' Newspaper. Beeton did not run the magazine very long. He sold Queen to William Cox (1862). Cox realized that a major concern of society ladies was fashion amd that a publication aimed at them should include material about fashion. He began by obtaining some Paris fashion plates. He got the plates from Le Petit Courrier des Dames. The artist was A. Pauquet. He was a superb illustrator and the plates helped to make Queen a very popular magazine. Cox subsequently plates from Journal des Demoiselles. They were drawn by E. Préval, another excellent illustrator. A complication here was that even though Queen was an English fashion magazine, the fashion plates were French. The popularity of these plates caused Cox to shift the focus of Queen. The magazine became an important fashion magazine and began publishing larger plates to better show case the fashion. Cox began publishing larger plates (late 1860s). There was a lot of information about children's fashions. Commonly a child would be included with plates of adults. There were also plates dealing exclusively with children's fashions. We begin to see larger groups (1880s). Queen began running the work of A. Sandoz (1888). His plates were done with English settings and can be viewed as English fashions in contrast to the earlier French plates. The trend tpward larger fashion plates was also adopted by French fashion magazines like La mode Illustrée. Queen normally ran plates measuring 11" by 15".

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Created: 10:14 PM 9/25/2008
Last updated: 10:14 PM 9/25/2008