Content area
Full Text
A history of the paper pattern industry: the home dressmaking fashion revolution Joy Spanabel Emery New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2014 272 p. ill. ISBN 9780857858313. £19.99/$34.95 (paperback).
Like so many aspects of fashion studies, paper patterns have received increased scholarly attention in recent years. Exhibitions at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City (Dreams on paper, 1997) and the ModeMuseum in Antwerp (Patronen =patterns, 2003) have focused on patterns, and patterns appear alongside finished garments in the Musée Galliera's 2014 exhibition Les années 50. From the late 19th century through much of the 20th, paper patterns in various forms represented the central way that fashion ideas became material realities - especially for women who made clothes for themselves and their households rather than employing tailors and dressmakers. It is perhaps surprising that the history of these ubiquitous, inexpensive objects have not been more widely studied; they are the primary sources of fashion.
A history of the paper pattern industry: the home dressmaking fashion revolution, a new study by Joy Spanabel Emery, is the only book-length historical survey of commercial paper patterns now in print. Emery touches upon related economic, social, and technological factors like the development of the sewing machine for industrial and home use, the evolution of fashion magazines and mail-order catalogues, the role of dressmaking instruction in women's education, the rise of department-store shopping, and the need to economize on paper and fabric during World War II.
Other writings on the history of commercial paper patterns include Carol Anne Dickson's entry in the Berg encyclopedia of world dress and fashion, 'The pattern industry',1 and the same author's 1979 dissertation: 'Patterns for garments: a history of the paper garment pattern industry to 1976'.2 Several other unpublished theses and dissertations on related topics, mainly from the 1970s, can be found in WorldCat. Kevin L. Seligman's reference work, Cutting for...