Women's Wear Daily Turns 100 - A Look at Their First Issue.

One hundred years ago today was the start of Women’s Wear. At the time, this publication targeted male women’s-wear merchants and the price was $3 for a year. About 15 years later the name of this newspaper changed to Women’s Wear Daily and a legendary fashion publication was born. The evolution of Women’s Wear Daily throughout the years is insurmountable. This publication started to incorporate a woman-based reader, the covers began to include pictures, recognizable designers were discussed, and finally, color was added. The most astounding change is the price increasing from $3 per year into $129 per year- the result of success.

Here's what they aimed to do 100 years ago:

“It will be the aim of the publishers to present to its subscribers a succinct epitomization of the most important happenings and events occurring in the women’s wear industry. The scope of the publication will be to cover the factors between the mill and the merchant. There is probably no other line of human endeavor in which there is so much change as in the product that womankind wears. This brings about an enormous amount of traveling, and the result is that important men in all departments of women’s wear are scattered everywhere over the earth’s surface and lose track of events and happenings, which it will be our purpose to to try and chronicle as briefly as possible, so that these men can pick up and at a minimum of time and expense keep posted. A knowledge of what has transpired is most important, and Women’s Wear will aim to do this.”

Women’s Wear Daily has made leaps and bounds throughout the decades and is now one of the most noted fashion publications today.
-Leigh Loosbrock