WITH RISING prices and
declining quality to contend
with, many fashion-conscious
individuals are taking it into
their own hands to clothe
themselves.

Computerized machines, easy-to-use
sergers, and a good selection of fashion
fabrics, all stocked by local stores, make
home sewing both an affordable and ef-
ficient alternative to store-bought fash-
ions.

Judi Speirs, owner of What a Notion
Fabrics in Park Royal North, says that a
suit of fine wool can be made for ap-

proximately $350, while its store-bought
counterpart can run as high as $2,000.
A linen suit can be sewn for around
$60.

Or for bargain sewing, Textile Clear-
ance House, which opened in
Fabricland’s Lower Lonsdale location
in April, stocks fashion fabrics under $6
per yard.

And Albee’s Sewing Centre at
Westview Plaza in North Vancouver of-
fers evening seminars ranging from sew-
ing jessons for beginners to instruction
in cutwork and hand embroidery for the
more advanced. The fashions pictured
here, and sewn by instructors at Albee’s,

have been embellished with handwork.

Sunday, June 20, 1993 - North Shore News - 17

oy

he changing faces of Vogue magazine

NEWS photo Mike Waketietd

THE HISTORY of Vogue reaches back 101 years, providing
_readers with a record of changing society, fashion and culture
through the 20th century.

MY EARLIEST memories of Vogue are as a dreamy 12-
year-old, visiting family friends in Lake Oswego, a fash-
ionable suburb of Portland, Oregon.

Strewn around the_living room
of their stylish home were a_
number of the fat, glossy maga-

zines. I spent hours that visit, por-

ing through every issue, taking
note of every fashion, and when it
came time to leave, our hostess
graciously parted with three.

A young Brooke Shields graced
the cover of one; a pair of sandals
Uhad just purchased — my first

with heels — were featured in

another. And strawberry blonde
Patti Hanson, wife of Rolling
Stone Keith Richards, filled the
pages ofallthree. .

While I had only just then
discovered the allure of America’s
arbiter of fashion, Vogue had al-
ready been captivating readers’ at-
tention for ciose to 90-years.

In 1909, Vogue, then an ailing - -

society weekly, was bought by the
young American publisher Conde
Nast. Along with his editor, Edna
Woolman Chase, Nast transform-
ed Vogue into the record of fash-
ion. Profiling society ladies in the
‘10s, informing America of -
French couture trends in the ’20s,

Layne

Christensen

STYLE NOTES

and, when the Wall Street Crash
of °29 put Paris couture out of
economic reach, promoting
Hollywood-inspired escapism in
the ’30s.

“Between us, we showed
America the meaning of style,”’
Nast was reported to have said of

his and Chase’s accomplishment
before his death in 1942.

Writes author Kennedy Fraser
on the jacket cover of the lavishly
illustrated coffee-table book On
the Edge: Images of 100 Years of
Vogue (Random House, 1992):
“The history of Vogue spans the
20th century and is a history of
society and culture as well as fash-
ion shifts of taste and profound
changes in the way women view
the world and are viewed by it.”

Today, American Vogue enjoys
a readership of 8 million, with
British, French, German, Italian,
Spanish, Australian, Brazilian and
Mexican editions boosting interna-

. tional readership to stratospheric

heights.

Changing times have forced the
magazine to reconsider its role as
autocratic ruler of the fashion
world — women no longer accep-
ting the fashion bible’s word as
gospel, unquestioningly following
every tad, be it body painting or
disposable dresses, as they did in-
to the °70s — yet Yogue retains a
loyal core of readers who have a

‘very special relationship with their

magazine.
Every magazine has its own
See Vogue page 24