The Journal des Dames et des Modes Paris edition (JDM) started in 1797. It may be said that JDM was the first mode magazine and was the blueprint for the many mode magazines that followed which were much in vogue in the 19th century. This report specifically deals with the contents of 216 issues of JDM published over three years in the early 1830s. The authors translated the relative captions on the 217 fashion plates included in these magazines and investigated how the social background or people's view of fashion in those days was incarnated in costume and its ornaments. The social structure was changing at that time in the aftermath of the Industrial Revolution and the French July Revolution, and it came to our attention that the vitalization of the textile industry brought about by the sweeping reform of society presumably had a concrete influence on the building up of the idea of costume and its ornaments. We have also looked into the relations between the Romantic costume and the image of the ladies in the bourgeoisie. In earlier times, ladies dressed up in fine costumes were regarded as “a men's signboard” symbolizing a man's relative status in society. Gradually, however, women's costumes came to symbolize noble ladies' own self-confidence and self-satisfaction. The fashion plates decorated with more attractive and new modes contributed to forming the image of ladies under the changing social circumstances. Through our study of the fashion plates, we came to appreciate how new modes were created and what role costume and its ornaments played in society.