Read more
List of contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Part One: The development of the dressmaking trade
1. ‘About suppressing the Women Mantua-makers’
2. ‘The art and mystery of mantua-making’
3. ‘I bought me a gowne’
4. ‘Undeviating Endeavours to Please’
5. ‘At short notice … and at most Economic charges’
6. The watershed of the 1870s
7. Winners and losers
Part Two: Dressmakers in fact and fiction
8. Dressmakers in fiction
9. Dressmakers in fact
10. Ladies and their dressmakers
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the author
Pam Inder is an independent scholar and was formerly Curator of Applied Arts at first Exeter and then Leicestershire Museums (specialising in dress history), after being an Assistant Curator at Birmingham City Art Gallery. She later taught at Staffordshire and De Montfort Universities.
Summary
The dressmaking trade developed rapidly during the 18th and 19th centuries, changing the lives of thousands of British workers. Busks, Basques and Brush-Braid focuses on the trade and the people within it, from their working conditions and earnings to their training, services and relationships with customers.
Exploring the lives of dressmakers in fact and fiction, the book looks at representations of the trade in the plays and novels of the time, while surveying the often harsh realities of the workers’ lives. From the arrival of the sewing machine to the influence of the department store, it explores the impact of mechanization, commercialization and modernity on a historical trade. Pamela Inder illuminates a new world of dressmaking enabled by goods like paper patterns and magazines, and sets out to investigate the increasing monopoly of female dressmakers in an industry once dominated by male tailors.
Drawing on a range of original and hitherto unpublished sources – including business records, diaries, letters, bills and newspaper articles – Busks, Basques and Brush-Braid reveals the untold story of the dressmaking trade. Beautifully illustrated with over 80 images, the book brings dressmakers into focus as real people, granting new insights into working class life in 18th- and 19th-century Britain.
Foreword
This book examines the dressmaking trade in Britain during the 18th and 19th centuries, focusing on the trade and the people within it.
Additional text
This study is a treasure of detailed research from primary sources: it ably illustrates a long-standing gig economy for women, and evidences their individual humanity, through the amazing detail of their lives and work.
