Baker, Tabitha (2019) The embroidery trade in eighteenth-century Paris and Lyon. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

This thesis examines the professional embroidery trade of eighteenth-century Paris and Lyon within the broader socio-economic context of consumption, retailing and production. It investigates how consumer demand for embroidered clothing changed over time and the effects this had on the retailing and production of embroidery. It argues that embroidery was a highly flexible luxury product which evolved to meet the complicated consumer demand of heterogeneous European elites.

Embroidery makes for a useful case study of an ancillary trade of the luxury market which did not require sophisticated machinery or large capital investment. Embroidery was an important luxury trade in eighteenth-century France, supplying elite consumers across Europe with expensive, hand-made products. Nevertheless, no study to date has investigated the links between the consumption and professional production of French embroidery. There is no major socio-economic study of the trade, comparable with those for other fashion-related trades such as textile designers, shoemakers and seamstresses. Most research on embroidery has focused on the aesthetic qualities of groups of objects, or individual pieces. As a result, the business practices and professional networks of the embroiderers have remained absent from scholarship on the luxury trades of eighteenth-century France. Moreover, such scholarship has focused on cheaper commodities and middle class consumption.

This thesis addresses a significant gap in the current historiography by foregrounding the elite classes and their consumption of an individual luxury product. It sits at the intersection of economic history and the history of textiles and dress. It therefore draws on the traditional sources of economic and social historians such as account books, commercial correspondence and legal proceedings, and also on those used in material culture studies, including embroidered clothing, textile samples and designs. This approach posits a new understanding of the place that professional embroidery occupied within the hierarchy of urban luxury trades in eighteenth-century France.

Item Type:	Thesis or Dissertation (PhD)
Subjects:	D History General and Old World > DC France H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Embroidery, Embroidery industry -- Paris (France) -- History -- 18th century, Embroidery industry -- Lyon (France) -- History -- 18th century, Luxury goods industry
Official Date:	April 2019
Dates:	Date Event April 2019 UNSPECIFIED
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	Department of History
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor:	Riello, Giorgio ; Miller, Lesley Ellis
Sponsors:	Arts & Humanities Research Council (Great Britain) ; Victoria and Albert Museum ; University of Warwick. Department of History ; Economic History Society
Format of File:	pdf
Extent:	xv, 350 leaves : illustrations, map
Language:	eng

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