Dr Hannah Rumball-Croft 2025. “She could not see him put his arms around his female customers to take their measure and maintain her composure”: Tact, timidity, and touch in women’s tailoring. At Home with C19th Dress and Textiles Reframed Network. Online 28 Sep 2025
| Title | “She could not see him put his arms around his female customers to take their measure and maintain her composure”: Tact, timidity, and touch in women’s tailoring |
|---|---|
| Authors | Dr Hannah Rumball-Croft |
| Type | Conference paper |
| Abstract | The measuring of the body upon which the tailored garment rests was, and has always been, of the utmost importance to the tailor. Careful measuring helped achieve the appeal of their close, structured fit. Tailoring manuals contained detailed directives for male cutters as to the most precise and thorough manner in which to measure a female customer. However, tailoring directives advocating close measuring of the female anatomy were in striking opposition to the extreme prudishness with which wider nineteenth century society regarded even the most basic of interactions between the opposite sexes. This paper examines the nature and politics of touch in the male tailor female customer relationship in the sociocultural context of the nineteenth century. Looking at directives in tailoring manuals alongside other period sources, this paper considers practices undertaken by male tailors to decorously accommodate, or even eluded entirely, the act of measuring a female customer. |
| Keywords | Tailoring |
| Women's Tailoring | |
| Nineteenth Century | |
| Fashion | |
| Year | 2025 |
| Conference | At Home with C19th Dress and Textiles Reframed Network |