What was the Mantua? How a Seventeenth-century dress modified tailoring and gave women financial freedom

If you've watched a whole lot of historical dramas, you've probably seen one mantua Before. Originating in France within the 1670s, this women's garment consisted of T-shaped panels of material that were pleated to create an unstiffened bodice with attached overskirts.

This dress was worn over a pair of corsets and an often contrasting underskirt. Draping and folding the material created a dress that opened on the front.

What many individuals don't realize, nevertheless, is how fundamentally this garment modified women's involvement in the style industry – and was a ticket to financial freedom for an industry of female mantua makers.

What was the Mantua?

After its invention within the 1670s, the brand new dress immediately became popular with fashion-conscious Parisians.

Although there are strict dress codes on the Versailles court of the French King Louis XIV forbidden Wearing mantuas helped women within the English court make it popular in England.

By the 1680s, the mantua was commonly worn in Western and Central Europe, in addition to in European colonies world wide. It soon became the idea for all women's clothing within the 18th century.

Popular versions of the Mantua within the 18th century included:

Schneider versus Mantua-Maker

The Mantua radically modified not only the look of Western fashion, but additionally women's involvement in the style industry.

Before the Seventeenth century, outerwear was mostly made by male tailors. Apprenticeships and membership in guilds—the organizations that controlled most expert trades—were limited to boys and men.

Women participated in these professions informally. Sometimes they worked with tailors' relations (and a few were fined for it) and Widows were allowed to proceed the business of their deceased husbands.

Women had also historically worked as seamstresses or “silk women,” making small linen or silk goods equivalent to underwear and accessories.

However, this began to alter within the late Seventeenth century, through the period often called Consumer revolution – a period from the sixteenth century wherein the consumption of luxury goods increased significantly.

Significantly, in 1675, women in Paris and Rouen acquired their very own, self-employed seamstress (Tailor) guilds and commenced to take over the production of girls's clothing from male tailors.

In London, guilds with declining membership began to confess paying female members.

Due to France's significant influence on Western fashion, women in London began to achieve this Training with French tailorswhich led to what was known in English as Mantua manufacturer.

Tailoring and financial freedom

From the 18th to the twentieth centuries, tailoring and other fashion or textile industries (together with teaching and domestic service) were the major source of employment for girls in Britain, Australia, and the United States.

New training opportunities within the tailoring trade – coupled with historical features equivalent to those of London Female status, which allowed married women to run businesses and have funds independently of their husbands, meant that many ladies began to open their very own businesses.

Single women often lived in houses with other mantua makers and their apprentices and worked as teams. Married women typically worked alongside their husbands in workshops within the family home, a lot of whom worked as tailors.

Mid-18th century Instructions When parents taught their children about crafts, it was identified that mantua production was a big industry

was considered a noble and profitable employer [for women]Many of them live well and lower your expenses.

But several male tailors' guilds in Europe tried to forestall women from working as mantua makers, claiming they might take away their business. Additionally, many ladies who worked within the garment industry were poorly paid and infrequently worked in cramped conditions.

Yet many have risen above it. French Mantua makers were particularly popular because women in London paid significantly more for dresses made by French women who had access to the newest fashion knowledge in Paris.

Some became confidants of queens. Famous fashion retailer Marie-Jeanne “Rose” Bertin designed a lot of French Queen Marie Antoinette’s dresses (her critics called her the “Queen’s Dress”).Minister of Fashion“).

These networks gave these women access to vast amounts of consumers and social capital. In the nineteenth century, senior seamstresses and milliners, often called modistes, often carried their very own luxury fashions fashion houses within the West End of London.

The production of Mantua was also necessary Business opportunity for girls in Australia.

“M. Hayes”, Catherine Mellon and Martha Matthews were all “mantua makers and milliners” who advertised their services within the early years of the Sydney colony.

Legacies of the Mantua manufacturers

By the early years of the nineteenth century, mantuas fell out of use latest styles appeared. The term “tailor” regularly replaced the term “Mantua tailor”.

However, the gender-specific separation of labor remained. For much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, men were more more likely to be tailors and have their clothing made by tailors. Women were more more likely to be tailors and had their clothes made by seamstresses. The skills and techniques of every career remained very different.

With the appearance of contemporary fast fashion, the talents of tailors and dressmakers are quickly being lost and with them the knowledge of this revolutionary career for girls.