Just for the fun of it we have another French magazine for you. This issue of La Vie Parisienne was published this month in 1967, which makes it a later vintage than other issues we’ve shared. Gone are the drawings of Roger Brand and Jacques Leclerc—in their place are more photographs, typically of nude women. It’s a pattern we’ve seen repeated often. As the seventies neared many magazines eschewed art both on the cover and inside for photography, which was presumably easier and cheaper to produce. Such makeovers rarely helped with sinking sales, and La Vie Parisienne wasn’t one of the exceptions—it died in 1970. But of course, the seventies were the ruin of many traditional approaches to publishing. La Vie Parisienne had charted a course from its founding in 1863 through two world wars and countless shifts in consumer taste, and by any measure had to be considered a roaring success. The striking cover star of this is unidentified, in case you’re wondering, but the rest of the women are showgirls from Parisian cabarets, with the exception of actress Uta Levka. You also get classic art from Ingres, and cartoons from J.P. Monein. Fifteen scans below.
