ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses certain arguments concerning the inter-relationship of fashion, capitalism and labor relations in the early modern period. It also discusses the ribbon-making labor market, and highlights in particular the rising, mainly gendered, division of labor, as a consequence of eighteenth-century “ribbon mania.” The variations through which capitalism has been manifested in ribbon-making in early modern Europe offer us good examples. The chapter examines products, underlining their great variety, the intrinsic materiality of ribbons and their markets, spanning local and long-distance trade networks from European to non-European markets, higher to lower classes and urban to rural areas. The growth in consumption and the dissemination of the industry created gendered labor market segmentation in the late-seventeenth and eighteenth centuries thanks also to the variety of professional figures involved in production. Sometimes merchants reconfigured manufacturing strategies and product quality according to the broad commodity chain.
