The French model and the rise of Swedish fashion, 1800–1840

Abstract

This chapter shows how French influences had a large and wide impact on fashion in Swedish early nineteenth-century society. It focuses on textiles, fashion magazines and the emergence of advertising 1800–1840, but the French impact also applied to architecture and interior design as well as furniture production. The chapter highlights the French influence on three areas that have received comparatively less attention, namely fashion-producing manufactures, fashion magazines and advertising. Swedish fashion started to be presented on printed plates and discussed in specialist fashion magazines and printed brochures beginning in the 1810s. The process happened after traders and manufacturers started transferring, incorporating and transmitting the quality designations from the fashion magazines into their advertisements for textiles and subsequently clothing as well as accessories. The chapter shows how French fashion ideals and ideas had a big and broad impact in Swedish early nineteenth-century society.