Meet Mr. Beeton

Mrs. Isabella Beeton and her encyclopaedic “Book of Household Management” are justifiably famous. But her unsung husband, Samuel Orchard Beeton, has had an even more lasting influence on women: he invented the fashion magazine. In 1852, four years before he was married, 21-year-old Samuel published “The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine”. With each issue, he gave away a paper dress pattern, starting, in Volume 1, with ‘A Lady’s Jacket and Vest’. There was then no ready-to-wear fashion trade. Mr. Beeton’s giveaway patterns and practical instructions in his magazine established home-dress making, and gave fashion to the nation's housewives for just the price of the material - and, the magazine, of course.