Organised by the European-wide ACORSO Research Interest Group ‘Tailoring for Women 1750 – 1930’

Currently confirmed papers and speaker details (more to follow):

Fiona Anderson: “Fashioned in Wool: the Design Diffusion and Transnational Trade in British Woollens for Womenswear 1920–1930”

This paper explores the international design diffusion and export of Scottish and Cumbrian woollen textiles created for the elite level of the womenswear market between 1919 and 1930. It focuses primarily on the broad ‘family’ of woollen textiles known as tweeds, which became more prominent in women’s fashion from the 1920s onwards. This paper argues that the proportion of British tweeds designed for womenswear rose substantially after the First World War. The cloths created for that market became increasingly more diverse in design in that era. These changes were linked to an expansion in the manufacture of high quality ready-to-wear tailoring for women in Britain. They were also prompted by the growing fashionability of sportswear and sportswear-influenced, tailored clothes in the 1920s. This paper argues that the international design influence of British tweeds included collaboration between designers working for UK-based woollen mills and leading Paris-based fashion designers. This design collaboration was a first step that was integrally connected to subsequently securing export sales. The paper will also investigate the export trade in Scottish and Cumbrian woollens to North American designers and manufacturers of tailored clothes.

Dr Fiona Anderson is a Lecturer in Design History and Theory at Glasgow School of Art. She also teaches at Edinburgh College of Art and is a Trustee of the Design History Society. Fiona was formerly Senior Curator of Fashion and Textiles at National Museums Scotland. She is on the Steering Committee of the ‘Tailoring for Women 1750–1930’ project.

Mary Charlton “Competition; Collaboration; Community: Tailoring Trade Journals in late 19th Century London and New York”

This paper explores tailoring trade journals published in London and New York in the late 19thC, to examine how competing journals disseminated their content to the community they created in print. Although predominantly written for tailors making garments for men, the journals also featured fashion plates and drafting systems for tailored garments for women. A significant amount of copy was given to the proceedings of tailoring trade and benevolent societies in cities such as London, Edinburgh and Manchester. Functioning as forums promoting the art and science of the craft among their members, this paper seeks to identify the leading figures developing drafting systems for women’s tailored garments as the field made the transition from functional to fashionable. Indeed, the West End Gazette of Gentlemen’s Fashion was the voice of the Metropolitan Foremen Tailors Society. Edward Minister, a military tailor, established the Gazette of Fashion and Cutting Room Companion. The Tailor, later Tailor and Cutter, founded by John Williamson as a vehicle for reform and protest, developed into a leading trade journal with an international circulation. The John Williamson Co. also established a teaching academy and published many tailoring books, including works on Ladies’ tailored garments. In New York similar trade journals were published. One such, The American Tailor, was initially condemned by the Tailor and Cutter for “pilfering” articles without consultation or permission. However, by 1881 these two papers had developed a relationship that saw the exchange of news, cutting systems and fashion plates across the Atlantic, and reciprocal visits between London and New York. Examining surviving copies of British and American tailoring journals, this paper will attempt to demonstrate the extent of the communication and collaboration between them, and their transatlantic exchange and dissemination of ideas, cutting systems and fashions for tailored garments for women.

Mary Charlton is an independent researcher. Trained in theatre costume, she has worked as a designer, cutter and costume supervisor in the museum and heritage industry, theatre, opera and fine art. She holds an MA in History of Design and Material Culture from the University of Brighton.

Cynthia Cooper “A Comparative Analysis of three tailor made suits, about 1899-1902 from Montreal Establishments”

This paper offers a comparative analysis of three women’s tailor-made suits, all dating from the same three-year period, whose labels show that they were produced by three different tailoring establishments in a single urban location, Montreal. It will consider their styling, materials and construction and discuss them in relation to the contexts in which they were produced and sold, within which a transatlantic trade and exchange of ideas figured in their production. The three women’s tailor-made suits are held in the McCord Museum’s Dress, Fashion and Textiles Collection. All date from about 1899 to 1902 and are stylistically very similar: all are wool jacket and skirt ensembles with velveteen collars. All show signs of considerable wear; their outer fabrics remain in very good condition while their linings have deteriorated. Each has a maker label that identifies its source; two are department stores that had ladies’ tailoring departments and one is a bespoke tailor. Documentary sources show how each of these sources catered to different clienteles at different levels of socio-economic status, and worked within different business models. For all three, imported fabrics and an international network of fashion information figured prominently in their practice and promotional strategies. The bespoke tailor catered to a male clientele as well; extant examples of menswear from the same source will be discussed for comparison. One of the department stores was known to sell imported ensembles while the other produced all its garments in-house. The very close date range yet distinct contexts of manufacture of these ensembles offer an exceptional window into the range of quality of textiles and construction employed in women’s tailoring in one urban setting at a specific historical moment.

Cynthia Cooper is Head, Collections and Research, and Curator, Dress, Fashion and Textiles at the McCord Museum. She holds an M.S. in Historic Costume and Textiles from the University of Rhode Island. She is a three-time recipient of the Richard Martin Exhibition Award from the Costume Society of America.

Lorinda Cramer “Ichizo Sato: A Japanese Ladies’ Tailor in White Australia”

Japanese-born Ichizo Sato arrived in Australia in 1901, just months before the passing of the exclusionary Immigration Restriction Act – widely known as the ‘White Australia’ policy. With six years’ experience as a tailor in Yokohama and Tokyo prior to emigrating, he joined the ranks of tailors charged with outfitting increasing numbers of professions in Japan as the nineteenth century drew to a close. Sato migrated hoping to capitalise on what he had heard were good prospects in Australia’s tailoring industry. After settling in Melbourne, he opened a ladies’ tailoring establishment. This paper explores Sato’s work as a ladies’ tailor, tracing how he attracted his discerning customers and his reputation for fine work. It considers his links with his local community across the decades he negotiated living in White Australia, before he was interned as an ‘enemy alien’ during the Second World War and subsequently deported to Japan. The paper draws on a range of official documentation created in the White Australia era, on Sato’s extensive advertising in his local newspaper, and on a collection of clothes he made for his male friend, Setsutaro Hasegawa. These survive in the Museums Victoria’s collection today, revealing his meticulous work and skill.

Dr Lorinda Cramer is a social and cultural historian whose work explores the gendered dimensions of dress and textiles. She is a Research Fellow in the Gender and Women’s History Research Centre at the Australian Catholic University, and the Redmond Barry Fellow for the State Library of Victoria’s 2022 Fellowship Program.

Suzanne Rowland ““Easy enough for any girl to use”: Mechanical cutting machines and female cutters in the ready-made blouse industry”

‘The introduction of cloth-cutting machines has completely revolutionised the clothing trade, expediting and simplifying wholesale production to an extraordinary extent,’ hailed The Drapers’ Record in 1919. Leeds tailor John Barran’s band knife, developed in the 1850s, and subsequent innovations in portable, hand-operated cutting technology were crucial factors in the growth of the heavy and lightweight ready-made garment industries. This paper focuses on the Eastman Cloth Cutter, a handheld device first patented by Canadian inventor George Eastman in 1888. Using patented records, the Eastman Company’s personal archive and advertising and editorials in The Drapers’ Record, this paper will assess the impact of Eastman’s cutter on the upscaling of mass-blouse manufacturing in Britain. From the early 1890s, the blouse, worn with a plain skirt, had rapidly become a fashionable and versatile garment worn by a variety of women from across the British class system. Widespread demand, primarily from working women, necessitated upscaled production techniques. Eastman seized this opportunity and introduced their reciprocating blade cloth cutter to Britain in 1913. In a break from usual understandings of cutting machine operatives being men, this paper demonstrates how Eastman’s cutter was marketed as being easy to use for women. Standing to manoeuvre the cutter through the cloth, with the knife kept upright at all times to avoid graduating the fabric and distorting sizes, the mechanical cutting device imposed behaviours on the body of its operative. Marx believed that factory workers were mere appendages to machines and thus part of a ‘wearisome routine of endless drudgery’ (Marx, 1867). Importantly, however, in mass blouse making female cutters were often multitaskers who designed garments, purchased fabrics, and calculated costings. Alongside Eastman’s revolutionary cutter, these smart and capable women were at the forefront of the professionalisation of the ready-made fashion industry in the early twentieth century.

Dr Suzanne Rowland is a Visiting Research Fellow and lecturer at the University of Brighton.

Liz Tregenza “Jewish immigrants and the early history of London Wholesale Couture”

London wholesale couture, as a sector of the fashion industry, did not come into its own until the 1930s. However, the trade had earlier antecedents with many company directors working for, or, establishing tailoring firms earlier in the 20th century. The industry was unquestionably transformed by Jewish immigrants who arrived in London to escape the Nazi regime in the 1930s. However, an earlier group of emigres, who had largely arrived from (what was then) Russia or the Austro-Hungarian Empire, laid the foundations for the establishment of the trade prior to 1930. This paper focuses on two immigrant families who established business in London prior to 1930. Firstly, the Brenner family, who established their ready-to-wear clothing business c 1921 and secondly, the Masoff/Massey family who were working in the tailoring trade from c 1910. Using the trade journal The Drapers’ Organiser as a key source, this paper will explore the types of garments created by the firms these two families were associated with, and how such garments fit within wider narratives of fashionable tailored clothes in the early 20th century. Furthermore, looking particularly at evidence collected from the 1921 census, this paper considers the significance of Jewish immigrant networks for the London women’s tailoring trade. It also questions why this was a prescient moment for the upheaval of the trade away from the East End to the West End of London and the upwards social mobility of some Jewish families involved within the trade.

Liz Tregenza is a BFTT post-doctoral research fellow at the Victoria and Albert Museum and also runs a vintage fashion business. She completed her PhD at the University of Brighton in 2018, and her book Wholesale Couture: London and Beyond, 1930-1970 will be published in 2023.