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Garment Industry
Contents
History > Composition
of the Garment Industry > Dressmaking
> Dressmaking in the 1870s > Women's
Fashions in the 1890s > Department Stores and Changing Fashion
> Garment Industry in NYC Today
> Garment Labeling > Sweatshops
> Triangle Shirtwaist Factory > Sewing
Machine
Department Stores and Changing Fashion
Two factors played a significant role in the
decline of independent dressmakers in the twentieth century. First
came the grand department stores of the late nineteenth century.
With large reserves of capital, department stores could combine
a variety of all the components of dressmaking under one roof, and
even sometimes had individual dressmaking suites where customers
could deal in a setting similar to the shops of independent proprietors.
From the 1870's to 1890's clothing could be purchased in New York
City (ready-to-wear or made-to-measure) including department and
retail stores, but also at dressmaker-import houses, and through
the more traditional tailor. Department stores in New York proliferated
throughout the end of the nineteenth century, among the better-known
and biggest are: A.T. Stewart, Lord & Taylor, B. Altman, Stern,
Bonwit Teller, R.H. Macy & Co., Brooks Brothers, and Siegel-Cooper.
A testament to the rise of consumerism, when Siegel-Cooper opened
in 1896 more then 100,000 people came to the opening celebration
on Sixth Avenue and 19th Street. Additionally, during the late nineteenth
century, dressmaker-import houses began to be differentiated by
name, in a rise of brand consciousness. Among the more renowned
were: L.P. Hollander, Mrs. C. Donovan, White-Howard & Co., Macheret,
T.M. and J.M. Fox (so exclusive that it shunned all publicity),
Mme. A. E. Sauer, M. A. Connelly, Albert Guerin, Marian Dick, Mme.
Burlmeyer, Mme. Ferrero, Mme. Regnier, Mrs. Davidson (known for
the simplicity of her clothes), Mme. Rallings (one of the retail
world's arbiters of taste). These dressmakers were known for their
different styles and seem to have designed clothes to be made-to-measure
as well as some ready-to-wear pieces. It is a possibility that with
the proliferation of dressmaker-import houses (as opposed to smaller
dressmaker shops), these houses may have outsourced the construction
of their clothing to smaller contractors, including tenement sweatshops.
By the 1870's ready-to-wear and made-to-individual measure clothing
was available through catalogs, which were distributed by New York's
luxury stores. Clients could send in their measurements and order
anything from "walking suits to dinner and bridal dresses,
mourning clothes, underwear, hats, shoes, shawls and wraps."
(Ready-to-wear required bust and waist measurements, while made-to-individual
measure clothing required a dozen or so measurements.) In the Montgomery
Ward and Sears Roebuck catalogs of the 1890's, women's clothing
is available and includes: cloaks, shirtwaists, skirts, tailor-mades,
nightgowns, wrappers and tea-gowns, shoes, hats, shawls, and underwear.
Technological Improvements
Technological advancements in the garment industry
(sewing machines, patterns, cutting machines) actually had the result
of making clothing manufacture more time consuming. "Ironically,
the sewing machine and related inventions had the direct result
of rendering fashion more complicated, as designs incorporated new
methods and techniques in order to sate the desire for a labor-intensive
look so gratifying to the status seeker." The rise of the middle
class in the late 1800's and the prosperity that followed the war
led to a general tendency towards ostentation in dress, and clothes
were often excessively constricting and ornamental, covered in time-intensive
garnishments and passementerie. These time-consuming practices may
have been performed in sweatshop apartments, due to the nature of
the work and the fact that the taste for high-fashion details (like
feathers, beads) changes quickly and therefore does not lend itself
to mass production.
Changes in Style
The second blow to independent dressmakers and
the craft-styled production they participated in came from the
fashion industry itself. With the 1920s came looser fitting, more
simply constructed clothing. Custom craftwork was no longer necessary
to produce such clothes and the women's ready-to-wear clothing
industry rapidly expanded to meet the demand. By the 1930s, factories
produced clothing for all but the wealthiest consumers who continued
to patronize custom dress shops.
For further reading, see: Wendy E. Gamber, "The
Female Economy: The Millinery and Dressmaking Trades, 1860-1930"
(Ph.D. diss., Brandeis University, 1991); Irving Howe, World
of Our Fathers (New York, 1976.); Susan Strasser, Never Done:
A History of American Housework (New York, 1982); Roger D. Waldinger,
Through the Eye of the Needle: Immigrants and Enterprise in New
York's Garment Trades (New York: New York University Press,
1986). Caroline Rennolds Milbank, New York Fashion: The Evolution
of American Style, New York: Harry Abrams, 1996)
See also: Gumpertz
Family; Sweatshop.
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