Falling Out of Vogue

When I walked into the library's periodicals section, I honestly hadn't put any thought into which magazine I would start looking through. Figuring I would just walk down the aisles and be able to pick out a good volume to look through, I began in the basement wading through rows and rows of academic journals before I noticed a shelf full of Vogue, seemingly untouched for years. Why I pulled a volume of a magazine I had never opened before off the shelf, I couldn't say, but surely I could find a good candidate from the 12 issues within the tome. After about ten minutes of flipping through pages replete with pictures of women's fashion of the time, I started to lose hope of finding anything that I could enjoy reading through and then write about.

Eventually though, I did find an article from the series Vogue Essays on Etiquette concerning the proper way to write invitations, which the author seemed to think was a dying art in July of 1922. The article--along with the rest of the magazine--was definitely catering toward upper-class women who would soon be hosting parties themselves. I think one constant throughout many magazines (no matter the date of publication) is an emphasis on how-to articles. A plan for a model airplane, instructions for wreath making, installing new software, et cetera. All with the common purpose of educating the reader on a topic that the author decides is either a fun hobby or one of the necessities of coming-of-age and the added responsibility that coincides with getting older. 

In this case, knowing the proper ways to correspond with others and how to invite them to dinner were deemed a necessity for every young woman to learn when coming-of-age so she would not commit a faux pas when out in the world on her own. To me, how to address someone in an invitation or the terminology used to indicate whether an R.S.V.P. is expected does not seem to be a necessary skill. Obviously times have changed enormously since 1922, with invitations being one of the less noticeable differences behind other changes like say the Internet and television. Coming-of-age today is more about learning to drive and getting a job than learning that it is inappropriate to add a title to one's signature under any circumstance. 

However, in the 20's there must have been quite an emphasis placed on maintaining the proprieties of Victorian England, at least in the upper-classes (to which Vogue was seemingly marketed). Throughout the pages, there were numerous advertisements for boarding schools and many of the dresses and accouterments pictured looked as if they belonged at Windsor Castle. Nowadays I think the emphasis is on being trendy and new rather than posh and traditional. 

Nevertheless, if my sister's love of calligraphy and formal invitations is a good indication of the rest of American women these days, some of the guidelines laid out in Vogue's article seemed to have had a lasting impact. While invitations to a dinner are more likely to be sent via text than hand delivered by a butler, I rarely see a wedding invitation that does not at least aspire to evoke some sense of attending a great Victorian event. 

Coming-of-age has definitely changed over the past 90 years. Instead of focusing on the formalities and grooming of an individual into one who will meet society's expectations, the emphasis is now on the acceptance of responsibility and becoming self-reliant.