Tailoring
developed slowly in Europe between the twelfth and fourteenth century. The tailoring
guilds dates back to 1297, they were made up of weavers, and cloth merchants. In
the Middle Ages clothing was regarded as a way of concealing the body, but in
the Renaissance came the accentuation of the human form. The loose robe was the
standard uniform of the medieval period which was easily constructed from a single
piece or two of cloth which could be shortened and tightened to the wearer. Soon the cloth was cut and pieced together to
bring into the figure of the human body. This was the birth of tailoring and as
fashion changed this called for more skills from the tailor.
Cloth
was the distinguishing feature of garments; the wearer took responsibility for
the design and production of his own clothes. Little by little, the tailor had
more to say in the fashion and production of the garment. Master tailors grew in
towns and eventually became responsible for the clothing in society. The art and
science of tailoring became a ‘highly
specialized, complex, and jealously guarded craft.’
Italy,
Spain and France became the centre for fashionable dress, with
power, wealth, and influence. ‘Italy
reached its great flowering during the age of Michaelangelo, followed by Spain
early in the 17th century. France reached its fashionable peak for tailoring
during the long reign of Louis XIV (1643 - 1715), when foppish young men from
all over Europe flocked to Paris for their wardrobes.’ When the French king
died in 1715 a shift in fashion influence occurred.
In
1650 men began to give up the doublet, hose, and cloak that had been the staple
items of their wardrobe since the 1500s, and began to wear coats, vests, and
breeches, the three components which would become and begin the identity of modern
dress.
The English not only turned away from the doublet and hose, but quickly moved
through the phase of embroidered 'ostentation' decreed by the French court. Due
to the civil war (l642 - 1649) the brocades and velvets, the silk and pastel
satins and powdered wigs became apparent.
Over
two centuries later, the Puritans and Cavaliers fought each other during the civil war. The Cavaliers were more
interested in fashion than their moral convictions. English Puritans moved away
from the highly decorative and delicate court styles, and took up a more
practical form wearing mainly black. Both the landed gentry and the newer mercantile class became
progressively less exquisitely dressed during the 18th century, and far more
sombre and sober.
‘By the early 19th century, sobriety
(in dress at any rate) had begun to penetrate even the court circle itself, and
kings, consorts, and princes were seen to dress in a manner almost identical
with their subjects. By mid-century the age of stovepipe hats, umbrellas, and
frock coats -- each in glossy black -- was firmly in place.’
London
tailors began to dominate fashion; they evolved a style for masculine clothing
which was a subtle blend of landed gentry, sporting attire, and bourgeois
business wear. This was produced in the Industrial Revolution. In the past court
clothing had not been constructed with the concern of fit of the garment, instead
for decoration, fabric, and colour. In London they shifted away from the
ornamental and concentrated on the fit. Tailors
were trained to use wool cloth, and over years of experimentation and practice
developed techniques for ‘molding’
the cloth close to the body. In short, the tailor could now develop a new
aesthetic of dress: they ‘could mimic the
real body, while at the same time "improving" and idealizing it’.
It was no longer a question of voluminous yards of flowing silken brocade. Men
became ‘gentlemen’ displaying discretion,
simplicity, and the perfection of cut. In terms of fashion, the culmination of
that radical turn taken in mid-17th century.
‘There has been tremendous innovations in these
past hundred years in fashion and the art of tailoring: sewing machines now do
the work on straight seams better than could be done by hand; new fabric
technology has history produced more comfortable cloths; fashions have adapted
to more leisurely, climate-controlled lifestyles. But tailoring is still, and
likely to remain so, an art. It has not been brought down to the level of a
science. The tailor still believes in making personalized clothing, statements
of fashion for the individual, as he always has done’.
