The eighteenth century marks the birth of the first fashion magazines, including gazettes poorly illustrated, but books on fashion are already present before. The Galerie des modes et costumes français was thus published as early as 1778. Books, engravings, pandora fashion dolls2 are some of the ways in which new trends spread.
The dolls of France are dressed figurines that the ladies take pleasure in introducing themselves and to exchange between them on the occasion of meetings in order to discover and to make discover fashion which does not have yet channels of large-scale distribution.
It is considered a cultural universal, but the definition of marriage varies between cultures and religions, and over time.
The importance of French fashion and its notoriety are partly due to the creation of the fashion press in the early 1670s (notably thanks to Jean Donneau de Visé) which transformed the fashion industry, spreading French silhouettes and trends beyond the Royal Court and popularizing the notions of seasons and changing styles.