Magazine: Cahiers Bleus No. 40, Spring 1962

I'm incredibly excited to share a rare find - I was lucky enough to score a small collection of fashion trade publication Cahiers Bleus recently. Cahiers Bleus, along with its sister publication L'Officiel de la Couleur, served as trend forecasting publications for the fashion industry in the mid-twentieth century. Four books were issued per year: two in spring/summer - one featuring haute couture and one for ready-to-wear fashions - and the same for autumn/winter.

This was a prestige trade publication, in keeping with the luxury brands and textiles they featured. According to FIT blog, Cahiers Bleus were produced using the laborious pochoir printing method to apply colour to every page by hand - this technique enabled those key colours to be faithfully reproduced. This highly manual production process was no doubt responsible for annual subscriptions costing the equivalent of nearly $500 in today's money!

The magazine is a visual feast, with 42 pages of colourful renderings of designs by the major couture houses of the time. Designs from well-known houses like Schiaparelli appear alongside many more whose names, though clearly notable in their day, have slipped out of the collective consciousness over the years.

The wonderful sketches would be eye candy enough, but the most exciting aspect of this fashion treasure trove is the actual fabric swatches included alongside the designs. From textured tweeds to acetate taffetas and featherlight nylons, these swatches provide a fascinating snapshot of high fashion fabrics of the era.

Produced in France, the magazine does include English translations of the detailed commentary on key looks and trends - though I'd be remiss not to note that these are both rather slapdash and full of typos.