Reflective Writing
The opening paragraphs/page talks a lot about fashion trend in it’s time and how it can be changed by an individual, not just this but mainly the surge of fashion magazines throughout the years. The article also talks about Le Mercure Galant magazine being ahead of its time, evidence to this was when it re-emerged as ‘Mercure de France rather than, ‘Le Mercure Galant’
For the main bulk of this review I will be focusing on the first chapter of the article, I feel it is an important part of the article as it determines whether the reader is engaged in what they are reading. In this chapter, it shows the impact of France in fashion and fashion marketing, especially in a promotional sense. It mentions, “functioned not only as repositories of the progress of sartorial fashion and the most up-to-date, social, cultural and artistic development” they are trying to put a cross that magazines are like mini where houses holding all the latest information and trends with fashion business. I agree with this statement I regard magazines as my go to source when I’m wanting to find out about the critical information in the world of fashion. The article also discusses how “le Mercure Galant” was seen a gazette rather than a magazine, this is evidence of the amount of intellectual detail that it has over magazines. The article talks about how fashion magazines changed their style to coincide with the enlightenment of other merchants and businesses. They had to invest lots of money to gain even more money in the future to make the magazine more logical and informative. this was shown by, “by transcending their initial informative and commercial remit” and “acquired the wider intellectual profile which conferred upon them the status of worthy by-products of the enlightenment” The idea behind this was to risk a lot for the growth of the company in an economical sense.
The sentence, “the unexpected role the concept of taste was to play within this newly emerging context of the fashion magazine” show how important taste is to the magazine and how it keeps people reading. The fact that people see taste as a reason to buy the magazines shows how much power these magazines have on modern trend.
The article mentions things that I agree and can relate too, one of these being, “Magazines are truthful mirrors of their time” in some ways this is a correct statement and in others it’s not. Looking through the entirety of a fashion magazine can give you a good idea of the trend and styles that are around in this time, but there can 1 or 2 articles that where they are trying to betray a different look from around the 80’s or 90’s. I also agree how important taste is to the growth of fashion magazines, as well as this how much people rely on the words and wisdom put into them for their own personal benefit.
To summarise this review, I feel like the article goes into real depth on the history and the pattern of old and modern fashion magazines. It shows the importance of French magazine in trend and taste, also how it wasn’t easy for commercial businesses to grow in the world of fashion.