Background:

These French female fashion prints are from a historical folio of fashions from the Middle Ages through the Second Empire.  The prints include styles of clothing for adults and children in each period, as well as accessories such as shoes and hats.

The other periods represented in this work include the Renaissance, Louis XIII-XVI, Revolution, First Empire and Restoration.  The period for each print on this page is shown below the print image..

A legend appears at the bottom of each print providing further information on the designs shown.

These fashion prints were produced through the pochoir process, a stenciling technique common in the early 1900s for printing color.  Pochoir is similar to today's silk screening technique.