This Sporting Cloth: Tweed, Gender and Fashion 1860–1900

Abstract

This article explores the manufacturing, design and consumption of tweed cloth in relation to issues of gender in the late nineteenth century. It focuses on tweed produced on mainland Scotland by factory methods and the wider influence of that industry on woollen manufacturers in other areas of Britain. Exploring the history of this textile reveals the shifting ambiguities linked to male and female social and sartorial identities and the gender coding of tweed in the late nineteenth century. This Sporting Cloth for menswear. 4 Owing to its substantial investment in design innovation the products of the Scottish tweed industry were widely copied by woollen manufacturers from Britain and abroad. 5 In order to pursue the arguments presented in this article, it is important first to clarify the type of cloths that came under the generic name of tweed in the late nineteenth century. The London-based tailor James Locke is linked to the mythology surrounding the origins of the name tweed in that various texts debate whether the word derived from a clerk working for Locke who misread the Scottish word tweel or twill (which was the weave characteristic of Scottish woollens at that time) for tweed, or if the name derives from the Tweed river in the Scottish Borders. 6 What is more conclusive as evidence is that the word tweed does not appear in any business data surveyed before the early 1840s, and that it was widely used after that throughout the textile and tailoring trades. 7 The tweed industry of the late nineteenth century produced a much greater diversity of cloth than is signalled by contemporary, popular understanding of the term. The three principal classes of tweed that are regularly documented in trade literature of the period are Saxonies, Cheviots and Homespuns. Saxony tweeds are fine and densely woven and have a soft, smooth handle. They are made from merino wools and the finest versions are indistinguishable from worsted cloths. Cheviot tweeds have a rougher appearance and more open texture than Saxonies, although the finer versions were widely used as suiting and trousering cloths in the late nineteenth century. Homespun tweeds have the rough, coarse textured appearance that is popularly associated with the term tweed today, with Harris tweed being the best known version of this category of tweed. 8 These three classes of tweed were also all available in a wide range of weights and a phenomenal range of fancy designs. Exploring the range of cloths encompassed under the generic name of tweed is essential to developing an understanding of the history of these textiles. For example, in much of the primary literature examined, such as company records or nineteenth-century women's journals, the terms Cheviot or Homespun are frequently used in addition to the word tweed. 9 The Scottish woollen industry mainly focused on producing women's shawls and men's trouserings until the 1850s, when the decline in demand for their shawls left them looking for new markets. 10 Manufacturers responded by creating tweeds that we...

Highland Romance or Viking Saga?

“…18 Once perceived as a masculine cloth for rural purposes, tweed became fashionable with urban male consumers, as well as with the sporting elite, and gained a reputation in London and internationally for its 'high aesthetic appeal and quality of manufacture'. 19 By the late nineteenth century, tailored dress styles were increasingly adopted by women, and with this came the introduction of tweed to women's wardrobes. 20 The development of Orkney tweed appears to follow a similar, albeit slower paced, trajectory to that of tweed on the Scottish mainland.…”

The business of fashion in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries

“…The historical analysis of fashion as an economic phenomenon has been based mainly on an approach close to business history, although highly influenced by other disciplines such as cultural history. In addition to examining the historical origin of fashion and its manifestations in the pre-industrial period (Belfanti, 2008a(Belfanti, , 2008b(Belfanti, , 2009Richardson et al, 2003;Raveux, 2014;Riello, 2006) and the evolution of the apparel sector in Great Britain from the nineteenth century (Anderson, 2006;Godley et al, 2003;Honeyman, 2003;Riello, 2003;Ugolini, 2003Ugolini, , 2007, these studies have focused on three fields of research particularly prolific in the Contemporary Age: the development of hautecouture and the luxury industry in France from the mid nineteenth century (Blay, 2005;Brachet, 2012;Donzé and Fujioka, 2015;Font, 2012;Maillet, 2009;Okawa, 2007;Pouillard, 2011Pouillard, , 2013Pouillard, , 2015, the formation of a fashion system in the United States from the first third of the twentieth century (Arnold, 2009;Blaszczyk, 2008b;Clemente, 2007Clemente, , 2014Schweitzer, 2008;Welters and Cunningham, 2005) and the conversion of Italy into a new world leader in fashion during the second half of the twentieth century (Belfanti, 2015;Capalbo, 2008;Colli and Merlo, 2007;Fontana, 2008;Merlo, 2003aMerlo, , 2003bMerlo, , 2011Merlo, , 2015…”