THE ultimate pleasure of taking an online dip into the entirety of the Vogue archives — every issue since 1892 has been digitally scanned, page by page, and made available through a pricey new subscription site — is the sensation that it gives of falling into a fashion time machine and being shot out into different eras at random.

Click on the issue of Oct. 1, 1950, and you will find a cover by Horst P. Horst of Margot Smyly, the silver-haired model known as Mrs. Exeter, who appealed to older readers, and the promise inside of finding easy-to-wear clothes “in sizes 10 to 44.”

Click on June 24, 1897, and you will see a drawing of a hooked fish, a reference to the sporting theme of the fashions in that issue....