Gendered making and material knowledge: Tailors and mantua-makers, c. 1760–1820
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Creator
Taylor, Emily
2020
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Abstract
Emily Taylor The closing decades of the eighteenth century saw significant social, political and industrial changes, which were reflected in the métiers of fashion. Cotton fabrics came to dominate women’s dress, with the waistline moving to directly underneath the bust; men’s dress increasingly incorporated cotton fabrics, in heavier weights and monochrome weaves. Early dress historians cited mechanized textile production, the pursuit of global markets and the extremities of the 1789 French Revolution in explaining these changes, but some have recently uncovered a more nuanced view of long-term causes and regional variations. Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell, for instance, has discussed the influence of place and social group in the dress of the French royal court and post-revolution Paris. Similarly, in her study of late eighteenth-century Swedish tailoring, Pernilla Rasmussen concludes that Swedish making shared principles with Germanic practices.