Published in: Fashioning the Early Modern. Dress, Textiles and Innovation in Europe

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1 university of copenhagen Københavns Universitet Object in Focus IV. The Miniature Suit Thepaut-Cabasset, Corinne Published in: Fashioning the Early Modern. Dress, Textiles and Innovation in Europe Publication date: 2017 Document Version Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Citation for published version (APA): Thepaut-Cabasset, C. (2017). Object in Focus IV. The Miniature Suit. In E. Welch (Ed.), Fashioning the Early Modern. Dress, Textiles and Innovation in Europe (pp ). Oxford University Press. Pasold Studies in Textile History, Vol.. 18 Download date: 09. maj. 2018

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3 Offprint from Fashioning the Early Modern: Dress, Textiles, and Innovation in Europe, EDIT OR: EVELYN WELCH PASOLD RESEARCH FUND

4 CONTENTS List of Illustrations List of Figures List of Tables Acknowledgements viii xiii xiv xv Introduction 1 Evelyn Welch PART I Innovation 1. Fashion and Innovation in Early Modern Europe 33 John Styles 2. Governing Innovation: The Political Economy of Textiles in the Eighteenth Century 57 Giorgio Riello : À É 83 Johannes Pietsch 3. Easy Innovation in Early Modern Europe 87 Evelyn Welch and Juliet Claxton 4. Innovation and Tradition at the Court of Philip IV of Spain ( ): The Invention of the Golilla and the Guardainfante 111 Amanda Wunder : 135 Corinne Thépaut-Cabasset : Emma Markiewicz

5 5. Dress, Dissemination, and Innovation: Artisan Fashions in Sixteenth- and Early Seventeenth-Century Italy 143 Paula Hohti PART II Reputation and Dissemination 6. A Glittering Reputation: Gaultier s Retailing Innovations in Seventeenth-Century Paris 169 Corinne Thépaut-Cabasset 7. Making a Reputation from Innovation: Silk Designers in Lyon, Lesley Ellis Miller : 215 Corinne Thépaut-Cabasset : 219 Clare Browne 8. Beauty in Search of Knowledge : Eighteenth-Century Fashion and the World of Print 223 Peter McNeil 9. Caricature and Fashion Critique on the Move: Establishing European Print and Fashion Culture in Eighteenth-Century Sweden 255 Patrik Steorn : 279 Patrik Steorn and Peter McNeil 10. Framing Early Modern Knitting 283 Maj Ringgaard : Maj Ringgaard : 317 Patrik Steorn

6 11. Filtering Impressions: Encounters with Fashionable Goods in Danish Everyday Life in the Eighteenth Century 321 Mikkel Venborg Pedersen : 349 Moira Thunder 12. Fashion in a Restricted Market: European Commodities in Greenland in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries 355 Peter Andreas Toft Bibliography 385 Notes on Contributors 427 Index 433

8 OBJECT IN FOCUS IV The Miniature Suit C T É -C This miniature suit is crafted from silk, linen, and silver braid, and has a canvas interlining. Comprising a coat, long-sleeved waistcoat, and breeches, it was probably made in France or England c and is currently located in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (Illustration OiF IV). 1 The coat (45.5 cm from the nape of the neck to the hem) and breeches (18.5 cm inside leg measurement) are made of matching light-green silk taffeta. The cuffs of the coat and the front panels of the waistcoat (35 cm from the nape of the neck to the hem) are of cream moiré silk, which has strips of silver thread woven through it. The coat is full-skirted and single-breasted, and the back pleats of the skirt are no longer buttoned. The cuffs are decorated with three buttons along the top edge. These buttons, and those running down the front of the coat and waistcoat and on the legs of the breeches, are made of silver yarn, which is slightly tarnished. The coat is lined throughout with cream silk taffeta, whle the sleeves are lined with linen. The pockets are of canvas but the flap and part of the pocket are faced with cream silk taffeta, as are the insides of the cuffs. The pockets on the skirt fronts of both coat and waistcoat have a three-pointed flap, decorated with false buttonholes; three buttons are sewn near each pocket opening to coincide with each point of the pocket flap. The waistcoat is single-breasted and collarless. The tapered sleeves are made of cream-coloured silk twill with one button covered in silk taffeta at the wrist. The fronts and pockets are lined with cream silk taffeta, whereas the back is made of cream-coloured silk twill. The sleeves and pockets are lined with glazed white linen. Breeches of knee length are lined with linen and cream-coloured twilled silk. The fit is adjusted by a steel buckle and strap on either side of the vent. The suit is cut and constructed in exactly the same way as a suit of adult size and resembles a man s court ensemble. It is too small to fit a child s body, suggesting that it was made half size for use by the tailor 1 For further images and details see miniature-suit-unknown/ [accessed 2 Mar. 2016].

9 216 Corinne Thépaut-Cabasset Illustration OiF IV. Miniature suit, probably made in France or England c VAM T.282 to B-1978, donated by Miss H. Prescott-Decie. Photograph Victoria and Albert Museum, London

10 The Miniature Suit 217 in order to demonstrate his skills to a client. A miniaturized suit would presumably have been easier to circulate than a full-size model. The shape of the coat and the pattern of the sleeves, cuffs, and pockets are comparable to those employed in court outfits or habits à la française conserved at the Royal Armoury in Stockholm: a blue coat (or justaucorps) of Frederick I, dated c.1748, 2 a red velvet costume of Adolf Frederick, from the 1750s, 3 and Gustav III s wedding suit, ordered in Paris in The pattern and construction of the miniature suit resemble the last of these. In early modern Europe a man s complete suit consisted of a coat (long vest or justaucorps), a vest (or waistcoat), and breeches. The socalled three-piece suit was used for formal dress from the end of the seventeenth century and continued throughout the eighteenth century. It was known until then as the habit à la française. The general shape of the formal suit underwent noticeable changes by the end of the eighteenth century. Beginning before the 1770s, the main modifications occurred on pockets, sleeves, and the side and back pleats of the coat, and also included the addition of a narrow collar to the coat, so that by the end of the 1780s the masculine silhouette looked more slender. Regarding variety of style and constantly changing fashion, France and England enjoyed the best reputation in men s tailoring. In his book on tailoring written for the Encyclopédie and published by the Académie des Sciences in 1769, Garsault describes the French suit as the European formal dress for men, which he uses to demonstrate the complexity of the art of tailoring. According to Garsault, the three-piece suit is the single most complicated piece of work for a tailor as it calls on every one of the principles of his art. The text is illustrated with plates and patterns of the different garments mentioned in the book. 5 The tailor is the artisan who cuts out, sews, makes, and sells male attire. In seventeenthand eighteenth-century Paris, in order to be received into the merchant tailors guild and to become a master, a tailor had to produce a masterpiece after an apprenticeship of seven years; but no tailor s chef-d œuvre seems to have survived. While it is difficult to say with complete certainty whether this ensemble was made for training practice or as a model, the fact that it is 2 Stockholm, Royal Armoury, Livrustkammaren Stockholm, Royal Armoury, Livrustkammaren Stockholm, Royal Armoury, Livrustkammaren François-Alexandre-Pierre de Garsault, Art du tailleur, contenant le tailleur d habits d hommes; les culottes de peau; le tailleur de corps de femmes & enfants; la couturière; & la marchande de modes (Paris, 1769), online at bpt6k108876j/ [accessed 2 Mar. 2016].

11 218 Corinne Thépaut-Cabasset only half size strongly suggests that it was made as a tailor s demonstration piece to promote his trade, or else during his apprenticeship in fulfilment of the requirements for becoming a master. It could also have been made as a model to be sent to a distant or foreign client. We know from court reports that instructions for tailoring and models were sent from Paris to other European courts so that the latest fashions could be reproduced. Archival sources reveal that in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the gowns of large dolls served as models for dressmakers and other clients. As with fashion plates, fashion dolls dressed by merchants were sent from Paris and London to other foreign courts and countries to showcase the latest fashions. In 1781, in his panorama of Paris, Louis-Sébastien Mercier admired the skilled hand of the designer who had painstakingly outfitted a doll that would show off the current fashions all over northern Europe and as far away as America. 6 6 Admirez la main légère de cette marchande de modes, qui décore sérieusement une poupée, laquelle doit porter les modes du jour au fond du Nord & jusques dans l Amérique septentrionale : Louis-Sébastien Mercier, Tableau de Paris, 12 vols. (Amsterdam, ), vol. i (1781), 5.

2009-CE-HE (DRESS) HOME ECONOMICS (DRESS AND DESIGN)

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