But by the
time we get to bustle, you really see the machine at work all over the place.
My main point was that the machine, once completely accepted, which took a little time, changed the way clothes were cut. A
My theory is this: Every time a machine was developed to make things easier, people expended the same amount of time and effort, just with a different emphasis. When industrial sewing and weaving became common, so women didn't have to spend all that time spinning, they started doing more fancy needlework and home dressmaking. After the sewing machine became popular, they started to develop more complicated cuts. After sewing machine attachments became available--I don't know exactly when this happened, BTW, but I suspect the very first models did not have them--they started adding a lot of machined ruffling and so on.
Then when factory-made clothing finally came to dominate the market in the 1920s or so, with the factory owners being concerned about saving money by taking fewer steps and using less material, the trend started going the other way.
That is, the trend in what most people wear, especially now that most middle-class women work outside the home. If they didn't, more would probably be making things that looked "different," that is, not factory made. As it is, most people express this urge by buying "designer" clothes, if they can afford them. For the ones who do sew, the urge to expand into other areas is still there. Once a lot of people got computerized sewing machines, then they started wanting computerized embroidery machines and separate sergers.
I am aware, BTW, that some men design clothing, sew, and do needlecraft; but these are still considered by the general culture as "women's work." (My father is trying to learn to knit, BTW. He says it's driving him nuts, but he's doing it.)
Fran Lavolta Press http://www.lavoltapress.com _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list [email protected] http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
