Questions I have about Fashion Plates (and some resources)
First things first, here is the comprehensive list of English-language informational books on fashion plates:
"Fashion and Fashion Plates, 1800-1900" by James Laver, 1944
"Hand coloured fashion plates, 1770 to 1899" by Vyvyan Holland, 1955
"Fashion through Fashion Plates, 1771-1970" by Doris Langley Moore, 1971
"Fashion Plates, 150 years of Style" by April Calahan, 2016
That's it. Four books. There's more books with reproductions of plates, but those don't really have much, if any, information on the plates themselves. There's also some more in french, japanese and dutch, but as I don't speak those languages, they're not particularily useful for me.
My Questions:
How were fashion plates made? What was the process from initial sketch to the print being included in with a fashion magazine?
Who was involved in the production of fashion plates? What were their roles? Job titles? Often there's signatures on the plates, but most of what I've found has been the signature of the artist who drew the design... but was there more than one artist involved? Did someone draw the backgrounds and someone else draw the actual dresses?
On the topic of artists, there's some very common names seen in fashion plate signatures - who were these people? I can't even find the full names of half of them.
How were dresses/designs picked for turning into fashion plates?
~~~~~ The above was saved as a draft a while ago. I've since put together a much longer list on my website for all of my Research Questions. Any recommendations are very welcome, even if they're not in english.
