This article examines the clothing of landowning farmers in inland Swedish from a gendered perspective during industrialisation in the nineteenth century. It considers clothes as possessions and goods within a European framework of trade and influence. In particular, it shows how clothing was a means of expression that changed during the course of industrialisation and how gender became an important factor in the supply and making of clothes. In the region examined, clothing changed from being a local fashion, characterised by similarities in material and workmanship between men's and women's clothes, to become a part of fashion in general with its emphasis on differences between men's and women's wardrobes. In the early nineteenth century, the female wardrobe accounted for a higher value as it included a greater share of garments made of manufactured fabrics. In late nineteenth century, when industrial forestry had replaced livestock farming as the main source of income in the area, men's wardrobes grew in value due to increased demand for tailor‐made garments and purchased fabrics. By contrast, women's garments were often made of simpler fabrics and sewn by seamstresses. These changes responded to the growing breadwinner–homemaker ideal and to national‐romantic ideas about folk costume – two tendencies that emphasised female domesticity and home‐woven fabrics.

This article explores the landowning farm households' consumption of foreign and manufactured goods in the hinterland of northern Sweden in 1770 to 1820. A set of probate inventories shows that the farmers in this particular areaa remote but central transit area for goods between the Norwegian coast and southern Swedenwere part of the general historiography of consumption. However, the findings of tea and coffee utensils, porcelain, printed cotton, silk fabrics and worsted fabrics show that their consumer behaviourdefined as 'semiindustrious'was shaped by the area's characteristics. The farmers increased their market participation and consumption of goods without breaking their existing consumption culture. They simply acquired more of the sameworsted fabrics for clothing and accessories in printed cotton and silk fabrics. The pattern of consumption is explained by the area's firm population structure, strong class barriers and practical aspects such as poor housing. The manufactured fabrics responded to many purposes in the farmers' day-to-day lives. The worsted fabrics were durable, warm and exclusive and the accessories fashionable. Compared with tea and coffee utensils, porcelain, clothing was a versatile belonging that did not need a home to be shown.