![Jean Lepautre, after Jean Berain, Garde-robes pour dames et pour hommes, 1678.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/garde-robes-pour-dames-et-pour-hommes-titel-300x225.jpg)
The beginnings of the modern fashion system
The forerunners of the first fashion magazines were published in Paris during the reign of Louis XIV. Like their modern counterparts, they pictured seasonal fashion trends, and helped to create the fashion system as we know it today.
Flourishing French fashion press
![Depictions of Renaissance fashion from Cesare Vecellio’s De gli habiti antichi et moderni di diverse parti del mondo. Venice, 1590.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/cesare-vecellios-de-gli-habiti-antichi-et-moderni-di-diverse-parti-del-modo-venedig-1590-300x270.jpg)
![Fashion involved not just clothing, but also a person’s gestures and surroundings. Jean Dieu de Saint-Jean, Femme de Qualité aux Thuilleries, 1668.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/femme-de-qualite-aux-thuilleries-1668-208x300.jpg)
Part portrait, part fashion plate
![Fashion plates were also available in colour. Henri Bonnart, Madame la Marquise D’Entragues, 1694.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/madame-la-marquise-dentragues-204x300.jpg)
Mercure galant – forerunner of the first fashion magazines
![Founded in 1672 with the permission of Louis XIV, the Mercure galant reported on the latest in fashion, culture and society. It is seen as a prototype for the first fashion magazines. The detailed descriptions it contains are one of our most important sources of information on Baroque dress.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/habit-de-printemps-225x300.jpg)
![The title Habit d’Hyver (‘winter clothing’) reveals the seasonal rhythm newly adopted by the fashion industry. The combination of detailed engravings and written descriptions as a way of conveying the latest trends was pioneering at the time.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/habit-dhyver-225x300.jpg)
The seasonal rhythm of fashion
![Woven silk, French, 1708-1710.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/seidengewebe-aus-frankreich-1708-1710-146x300.jpg)