Fabricating women : the seamstresses of Old Regime France, 1675-1791 / Clare Haru Crowston.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Crowston, Clare Haru, 1968-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Women tailors--France--History.

Women tailors.

Women dressmakers--France--History.

Women dressmakers.

Women in guilds--France--History.

Women in guilds.

Sexual division of labor--France--History.

Sexual division of labor.

Clothing trade--France--History.

Clothing trade.

History.

France.

Physical Description:

xviii, 508 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Durham, NC : Duke University Press, 2001.

Summary:

Fabricating Women examines the social institution of the seamstresses' guild in France from the time of Louis XIV to the Revolution. In contrast with previous scholarship on women and gender in the early modern period, Clare Haru Crowston asserts that the rise of the absolute state, with its centralizing and unifying tendencies, could actually increase women's economic, social, and legal opportunities and allow them to thrive in corporate organizations such as the guild. Yet Crowston also reveals paradoxical consequences of the guild's success, such as how its growing membership and visibility ultimately fostered an essentialized femininity that was tied to fashion and appearances.

Situating the seamstresses' guild as both an economic and political institution, Crowston explores in particular its relationship with the all-male tailors' guild, which had dominated the clothing fabrication trade in France until women challenged this monopoly during the seventeenth century. Combining archival evidence with visual images, technical literature, philosophical treatises, and fashion journals, she also investigates the techniques the seamstresses used to make and sell clothing, how the garments reflected and shaped modern conceptions of femininity, and guild officials' interactions with royal and municipal authorities. Finally, by offering a revealing portrait of these women's private lives -- explaining, for instance, how many seamstresses went beyond traditional female boundaries by choosing to remain single and establish their own households -- Crowston challenges existing ideas about women's work and family in early modern Europe.

Contents:

Part 1 Making the Goods

1 Seamstresses and the Culture of Clothing in Old Regime France 23

2 From Mending to modes: Trade Hierarchies and the Labor Market 74

3 Tools, Techniques, and Commercial Practices 113

Part 2 Making the Guilds

4 The Royal Government, Guilds, and the Seamstresses of Paris, Normandy, and Provence 173

5 The Tailors and the Seamstresses: Corporate Privilege, Gender, and the Law 217

6 Women's Corporate Self-Government: The Administration of the Parisian Seamstresses' Guild 256

Part 3 Making the Mistresses

7 Career Paths in the Seamstresses' Trade: From Apprenticeship to Mistress-ship 297

8 Marriage, Fortune and Family: The World of the Mistress Seamstress 343

9 Making the New Century: The Seamstresses, fm et suite 384.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [475]-494) and index.

ISBN:

0822326620

0822326663

OCLC:

46574381