“The Real Thing, Tack-to-Tuck”: Vogue’ s Paris Original Models, 1949–1961

In the aftermath of WWII, the Vogue Pattern Service launched a new line of paper patterns for home sewers in the USA: the Paris Original Models (POMs). The inaugural set of POMs, debuted in March 1949, featured a design from each of the houses of Pierre Balmain, Jacques Fath, Jacques Heim, Jeanne Lanvin, Edward Molyneux, Jeanne Paquin, Robert Piguet, and Elsa Schiaparelli. The POMs were touted in Vogue’s first announcement as “the real thing: precise patterns of models which were shown at the Paris collections and selected by Vogue for literal translation in America.” By scrutinizing the strategies used by Vogue across its ecosystem (Vogue US, the Vogue Pattern Book, and other branded promotions including fashion shows) to publicize the POMs, this article examines the ways in which Vogue sought to protect the prestige of haute couture (the origins of the POMs) while also expanding the reach of these designs beyond geographic and class boundaries through the construction of a simulated “realness.” This article draws on new research from the Condé Nast Archives, New York to trace these developments from the introduction of the POMs in 1949 to Vogue Pattern Service’s purchase by Butterick in 1961.