{"id":1919,"date":"2023-11-29T09:27:48","date_gmt":"2023-11-29T09:27:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/clarerosehistory.com\/blog\/?page_id=1919"},"modified":"2023-11-29T09:27:48","modified_gmt":"2023-11-29T09:27:48","slug":"research-womens-ready-to-wear-clothes","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/clarerosehistory.com\/blog\/research-womens-ready-to-wear-clothes\/","title":{"rendered":"Research: Women’s Ready-to-wear clothes"},"content":{"rendered":"
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‘John Noble’s 10\/6 Model Costumes’ 1895
(c) The National Archives, Copy1 127\/144<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

The history of ready-to-wear clothing for women has been one of my abiding passions. I’ve found documents from London merchants as early as 1740 advertising quilted petticoats sized to fit most customers (with adjustable drawstrings). I’ve looked at pricelists for warehouses where women travelling to Canada or Australia in the 1850s could buy a capsule wardrobe for the weeks-long voyage. I’ve seen how the boom in illustrated magazines from the 1870s onwards was underwritten by an increase in fashion advertising – especially for ready-to-wear. I’ve followed the path of clothing manufacturers who set up chains of fashion stores with branches throughout Victorian Britain. I’ve been comparison shopping in Victorian mail-order catalogues offering smart clothes for office workers at affordable prices. I’m currently investigating the Victorian women who worked as designers and commercial artists in the clothing industry, creating both garments and the images used to sell them – and who were promoted as role models by the magazines that published their work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If all this sounds a familiar, it should – the more I learn, the more I become convinced that the period from 1890 to 1914 laid the foundation of many of the features that define the ready-to-wear clothing market today. The fashion designers whose names we recognise may have been giants, but they were standing on the shoulders of those who went before them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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1894 Style sheet advertising ready-to-wear evening cloaks by Alfred Stedall, drawn by Ellen Ashwell (c) The National Archives, London<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n