Isola Bella

The Gazette du Bon Ton was a French magazine published between 1912 to 1925 which showcased the very best 'fashion, luxury and art' of its time. It targeted a cultured and discerning readership and the illustration plates were of exceptionally high quality, printed on expensive paper with the jewel-like colours added by hand using a stencilling technique. Georges Lepape produced numerous fashion plates for the magazine, an artist who, as The Times expressed it in 1914, specialised in creating 'designs of many wonderful female things'. This fashion plate for Redern evening dresses, with its glamorous Italian lakes setting, is characteristic of Lepape's elegant style.

Handcoloured illustration · Paris · June 1914. printer's ink, hand-colouring, pochoir print. By Barbier. Victoria and Albert Museum, London.