Lighter fabrics were one of the landmark products of the early-modern consumption revolution. A move towards textiles that were lighter in weight, less durable and more patterned was associated with new combinations of fibres – whether silk, wool, linen, or cotton. It shortened consumption cycles for both fabric and clothing, and introduced organizational changes in circulation and retail. It extended across regions and continents, and was closely linked with the global acceptance of light cotton fabrics between the 17th and 19th centuries. Whether we categorize these new, lighter textiles as Jan de Vries’s “New Luxuries” or Cissie Fairchild’s “Populuxe goods”, they played a key role in the birth of the modern consumer.
A key issue that needs investigation is what the cheapness of many of these lighter fabrics meant. The 17th century alone saw reductions of about a third in the weight of established woolen and silk fabrics, while sales of new, lighter fabrics boomed. Did the evaluation hierarchies for fabrics and dress undergo a downward shift, amounting to a paradigm shift in notions of quality for the whole industry? Clarifying this process is indispensable for understanding the depreciation of cloth and clothing that subsequently accelerated.
In the historiography, making cheaper textiles and dress since the 18th century has been discussed mainly in terms of labor inputs, especially new, labour-saving technologies. Alternatively, it has been addressed as a process of substitution between silk and cotton, wool and cotton, or cotton and linen. Often evaluations of quality have been conducted in terms of a simple distinction between “fine” or “coarse”. Yet valorization of popularized fabrics or clothing was not a simple process. Nor was it a simple linear outcome of cheaper material costs. The long-term processes of technological change in textile manufacture from 1400-1800 advanced on a variety of fronts, affecting all the textile fibers – silk, cotton, wool and linen. Quality was as important a priority as cost, although techniques associated with luxury production were often adapted for the manufacture of cheaper fabrics. A shift to lighter weights in luxury silk and woolen fabrics paralleled and probably intensified competition to produce cheaper fabrics. The demand for cheaper ranges escalated, and technologies and organization for producing not only lighter but also coarser textiles advanced. Mixed and union yarns, as well as the spinning of silk waste, facilitated the production of new ranges of fabrics with new quality characteristics. In short, the valorization of textiles and clothing became both more complicated and more dynamic.
The whole process involved increased specialization in raw and semi-finished materials – more precise sorting of the wool from the sheep’s fleece, more careful grading of silk fibers, more specification of yarns according to fineness. At the same time, it introduced changes in the circulation and distribution of the end product, and alterations in pricing, with faster depreciation.
The session aims to clarify these intertwining processes by taking an object-based approach. It is important to ground analysis in the materiality of the textiles themselves if we are to assess the technologies employed in making them, their markets, and the ways they were valorized and depreciated. The relative economic value of fabrics and the considerations that determined their value are central to the session. Its object-based, microscopic approach will also facilitate inter-regional comparisons.
Although the session’s focus will be mainly on fabrics and clothing, it aims to initiate broader discussion of quality changes, depreciation and popularization across a wider range of products from the 17th to the 20th centuries.