Illustrated fashion periodicals have been published from the 1770s. Before this point, details of current style were often shared through fashion dolls dressed in the latest trends, or through descriptions in newspapers of clothing worn at court occasions. Cabinet des modes was a French fashion periodical with hand-coloured printed images of male and female dress, children's clothing and trends in decorative household objects, shown alongside descriptive text. In 1786, following a rise in Anglomania in continental Europe, Cabinet des modes changed its title to Magazin des modes nouvelles françaises et anglaises ('Magazine of new French and English fashions'), before later becoming Journal de la mode et du gout, ou Amusemens du salon et de la toilette. Affordable and published frequently, it had significant influence until publication ceased in 1793 during the French Terror.

The fashion plates in this collection, which date from 1790 to 1791, show the influence of the French Revolution on dress. Outfits combining Bourbon royal white with the blue and red traditionally associated with the city of Paris were designed to demonstrate a wearer’s patriotism to the new republic. Ribbon cockades can be seen in some of the ensembles. These had long been used as a symbol of military allegiance, and in the next year, 1792, the wearing of a tricolor cockade in the hat or buttonhole was to become obligatory for all women and men – even foreign visitors.

In the nineteenth century, Sir William August Fraser, a politician and noted collecter of prints, caricatures, portraits and objects associated with key figures in history, combined numerous fashion magazines together into leather-bound volumes. This, the fifth of seven containing issues of Cabinet des modes, consists of 36 magazines dating from 1790-1. Fraser bequeathed his collection of style publications to Queen Alexandra, consort of King Edward VII, in 1898 when she was Princess of Wales.