ABSTRACT
French haute couture designers, and before them dressmakers and tailors, made clothing for the wealthy upper classes. The scope of fashion did not reach much beyond this level. The working classes, and those unable to afford dressmakers who could copy or adapt couture styles, wore industrial “off the peg” clothing or second hand clothing (Baudot 1999: 11-12). Mila Contini states that clothes “filtered down,” passing from hand to hand until they eventually reached the rag merchants (1965: 310). Well into the seventeenth century the tailoring of clothing for both men and women was considered a male enterprise. By the eighteenth century this would shift. Millinery and dressmaking became a “female pursuit,” while tailoring remained in male hands. This development opened up many career opportunities for women (Gamber 1997: 10).
