In search of... Perfumes Y modas Mexico fashion magazine 1954-1957(Lost media)
Walking down Donceles street in México city looking for the Mexico 68 programs I found in 2014 this set of magazines that have turned out to be one of the hidden and most mysterious jewels I have had in my collection due to how it has been eluding me for 7 years to have more information about it.
What makes "Perfumes y Modas" special is not only that it is a Mexican fashion publication that covered the avant-garde fashion of the time and the Cannes Film Festival, the French and Spanish fashion collections; it featured Mexican advertising for Chanel, Dior, Nina Ricci, the great centers of fashion glamour, cocktail bars and restaurants in the Zona Rosa, downtown and Pedregal.
These details range from the experimental editorial design that involves each issue having different formats inside, such as postcards of theater stars, stories by avant-garde writers and the special sensation of having fashion photos next to an article with illustrations by Mathias Goeritz, Leonora Carrington, Jose Luis Cuevas, Alice Rahon, Cordelia Uruerta and photographs that are collaborations with great mid-century photographers such as Lola Alvarez Bravo and more famously Walter Reuter (yes, the same photographer who fled German Nazism, went through the Spanish Civil War to get to Mexico and who has a photography award in his name).
as well as accredited Parisian photographers who made special collaborations for the magazine; which according to its technical file had sales representatives in New York, Paris, and Cuba what makes it a treasure is the way in which the graphic proposal, the content and the Art-Theater-Fashion link converge in a publication where as they themselves say:
"Perfumes and fashions that has always tried to go to the forefront of new values, first painting, then in sculpture and later in literature, fashion and dance". It leaves it as a piece that challenges the historical belief of how fashion magazines were communicated in Mexico in the 50s with little content, thought more as consumer catalogs and showing that those exercises of the past seem to be with more weight than our idea of contemporary Mexican fashion publication.
Even greater mystery is who are credited as creators of this concept, on the one hand is Eduardo Lopez Miarnau and his brother Rafael Lopez Miarnau, The latter is a key piece not only because he is mentioned as the artistic director of the magazine (implying that many of the content and design decisions were made by him) but also when talking about the history of theater in the country, creating groups such as the theatrical Teatro Club and being an influence of the discipline during the 60s, 70s and 80s and like Walter Reuter are part of the Spanish exile caused by the civil war. Before this product worthy of the synergy of the culture of the time remain fascinating questions such as what can motivate a group of refugees with specific careers in being chroniclers of war and art to empty everything in the form of a fashion magazine, also the idea of whether it is a whim project or who was thought in mind as buyers (of this literal who sold them to me in his bookstore said "if there are more I should ask, it was an old lady from Polanco”).
In the end between lack of research tools and then the pandemic have made it very difficult to search and find more about each of these creators and their involvement in the publication to such a degree that we do not know when it began to be published and the reasons for its disappearance. The 5 issues rescued comprise issues from 17 to 24 between 1954 and 1957.
I share this fragment and photos with you in case anyone has information, knows more about the people involved or knows what other resources and archives I can consult to continue unveiling the story of this unique piece DM me.
