Makers, Making, and Modes of Fashion Production since 1765 - HOA00125M

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Module summary

This module introduces the plurality of ways that fashionable goods have been fabricated in the West since advances in textile manufacturing initiated the modern fashion system. It traces the evolution of fashion making practices through the lens of historical materialism, using a hands-on, object-centred approach to examine how the cultural and economic value of fashion objects and their makers has changed over time.

Module will run

Occurrence	Teaching period
A	Semester 1 2025-26

Module aims

The invention of the Spinning Jenny in 1765 marked a turning point in how textile products were made, leading to a series of technological developments in manufacturing that enabled fashionable goods to be made ever faster and cheaper. The resulting accessibility of fashionable consumption across a wider range of the population changed both the role of making in everyday life and perceptions about the value of different types of making practices and their practitioners. This module explores the impact this had both on the types of fashionable goods produced and how they were perceived by consumers.

Teaching focuses on a series of object case studies spanning 1765-today, highlighting how evidence of makers and making processes can be used to develop historical analysis. Students will develop expertise in a range of methods for identifying the materials and processes used in fashion objects through hands-on experience. They will be invited to synthesise this material understanding with knowledge about changing manufacturing techniques and cultures to develop their own original analysis that explores how fashion objects can contribute to contemporary debates around issues of sustainability, migration, inequality, and gender. While the module primarily focuses on U.K. examples, it uses these to highlight how local and global fashion systems were connected through trade and colonialism.

Module learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should have acquired:

• an advanced understanding of the processes by which clothes are made and the tools used for making
• advanced knowledge of changes in manufacturing techniques since the Industrial Revolution and the technological, cultural, economic and political reasons behind these changes
• a sophisticated ability to interpret material fashion objects, perform comparative analysis between objects, and form hypotheses about their connections to broader historical narratives

Indicative assessment

Task	% of module mark
Essay/coursework	100

Special assessment rules

None

Indicative reassessment

Task	% of module mark
Essay/coursework	100

Module feedback

You will receive feedback on assessed work within the timeframes set out by the University - please check the Guide to Assessment, Standards, Marking and Feedback for more information.

The purpose of feedback is to help you to improve your future work. If you do not understand your feedback or want to talk about your ideas further, you are warmly encouraged to meet your Supervisor during their Office Hours.

Indicative reading

• Adamson, Glen. The Invention of Craft. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018.
• Bide, Bethan, Jade Halbert, and Liz Tregenza, eds. Everyday Fashion: Interpreting British Clothing Since 1600. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2023.
• Burman, Barbara. The Culture of Sewing: Gender, Consumption and Home Dressmaking. Oxford: Berg, 1999.
• Davidson, Hilary. “The Embodied Turn: Making and Remaking Dress as an Academic Practice.” Fashion Theory 23, no. 3 (2019): 329–62. doi:10.1080/1362704X.2019.1603859.
• Godley, A. “Singer in Britain: The Diffusion of Sewing Machine Technology and its Impact on the Clothing Industry in the United Kingdom, 1860–1905.” Textile History 27, no. 1 (1996): 59–76. doi: 10.1179/0040496967937117257.
• Honeyman, Katrina. Well Suited: A History of the Leeds Clothing Industry, 1850-1990. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
• Ku¨chler, Susanne, and Daniel Miller. Clothing as Material Culture. Oxford: Berg, 2005.
• Parker, Rozsika. The Subversive Stitch: Embroidery and the Making of the Feminine. London: Bloomsbury, 2021.