On the History of Lithuanian Fashion: Why There Were No Local Fashion Magazines in Nineteenth-Century Lithuania

Abstract

The concept of a fashion magazine, born in seventeenth-century
France, caught on quite quickly in other European countries. Many
European cultures either directly copied the French magazines or
produced their own versions. Lithuanian culture, however, produced
a fashion magazine neither in the early days of female-oriented
fashion periodicals, nor later. The purpose of the article is to review
the historical circumstances that prevented the occurrence of a
fashion magazine in nineteenth-century Lithuania and reflect on
the reasons why. The text explores the objective material and factors
around fashion information consumption in the Lithuania of the
nineteenth century, such as socio-political, linguistic issues, the
urban environment, and the context of the printed press. Surviving
examples of nineteenth-century fashion discourse in the periodicals
Tygodnik Wilenski and La Limande are introduced as the solitary cases
of fashion publication in the territory of nineteenth-century Lithuania.
The underdevelopment of consumerism, lack of urbanisation and
absence of explicit national self-identification are suggested as the
main reasons that there was no national fashion magazine.