Having explored the tailoring traditions from the South of Italy in Friday’s post, let’s take a trip back to the North and rediscover the profession of the tailor in Venice.
Even in the early days, this was a very popular profession in Venice with different tailoring houses providing not only ordinary clothes, but also Carnival and theatre costumes (and, as the years passed, ballet, opera and film costumes).
An extraordinarily fascinating world revolved around the sartori (“tailors” in Venetian dialect), from shoemakers to shirtmakers, embroiderers, milliners and lace makers.
Venice was among the first places in Italy where the representatives of the arts and crafts reunited themselves in guilds, regulating their social and professional lives with precise rules.
The rules regulating the job of the tailors were included in a document dated February 1219 that opened with an oath upon the Gospels.
Taking the oath the sartor swore not to cheat his clients but provide them with the right tips and suggestions when it came to choosing the quantity and quality of the fabric needed to make a garment.
At the time, the sartor created designs for both men and women: the latter were obviously more expensive, since they included many different garments, embellishments and decorations.
Tailors had to take care of different aspects, from taking the measurements to cutting the fabric, though the job was facilitated by the fact that severe laws prohibited to integrate innovations into their designs that looked more or less the same, with just a few alterations added.
During this period of time it wasn’t rare to find manuals about the tailors’ job, from Il libro del sarto (The Tailor’s Book) originally published by Querini, a sort of illustrated book with different designs and cutting tips.
Manuals, illustrations and engravings were rather popular, especially the ones illustrating the fashion trends from different parts of the world.
Strict rules regulated a tailor's career: the apprenticeship lasted 5 years and it was followed by 2 years of training.
There were also tailors specialised in renovating and adapting second-hand gear who sold accessories and antiques as well.
During this period of time, the job of the tailor was mainly considered as a career fit for a man, with women mending clothes or carrying out minor sewing jobs.
There were only very few sartoresse (female tailors) who also worked as cutters and, in various illustrations from this time that refer to this profession, the tailor is portrayed as a man sitting cross-legged on a counter or a table, sewing on his lap.
In the 1500s Venice adopted Spanish and Dutch trends, favouring soft shapes and rounded up silhouettes, before eventually surrendering to French fashion.
Tailors also changed names into the more exotic monsù and, from the 1600s on, they started drafting registers for their orders: it’s easy to find in the archives documents written by different tailors listing entire wardrobes ordered by wealthy Venetian families.
In the 1700s noble men would buy one new suit and one new Carnival costume a year, while the lower classes would buy one new garment every two years.
Many tailors had successful businesses since they made ordinary clothes, but also uniforms for soldiers, prisoners or for different professions, and they often enlisted the help of women who worked from their homes.
According to a survey, in 1710 there were 322 tailors in Venice, but only 6 of them were women. In France instead it was a woman, Marie-Jeanne Rose Bertin, milliner and dressmaker to Queen Marie Antoinette, who dictated the new trends.
Fashion from France was exported abroad through the “la poupee de France”, known in Venice as “la piavola de Franza”, a doll officially dressed in the latest Parisian creations.
In fact, according to Carlo Goldoni's Memorie (Memoir), Venetian tailors dressed the doll in their own styles, making them pass for trends imported from France since the locals favoured foreign fashion, even though severe laws prohibited tailors to employ silks and brocades imported from other countries in their designs.
Being a tailor wasn’t therefore that easy since it wasn’t rare for tailors to be denounced by spies alerting the authorities about a particular craftsman using forbidden fabrics.
Yet, despite difficult, the profession was considered as desirable, and, throughout the 1800s, people started emigrating from other Italian regions to move to Venice and open their own tailoring houses.
The technological advances introduced in the profession in the 1800s helped innovating the tailor’s profession. One major change was the introduction of patterns: throughout the 1500s and 1600s, tailors didn’t have any patterns, but cut the fabric following the silhouettes of the body of their clients.
The designs obtained were therefore unique since they didn’t often fit other clients, yet they provided a starting point for a design.
This is the main reason why some of these designs were jealously preserved and even protected with notary’s deeds.
In 1810, a Dresden-based tailor, created a geometrical scheme on which it was possible to cut both men and women’s wear.
The patterns were based on geometries and anatomical studies, and became very helpful for tailors. Yet, despite such progresses on a technical level, the production of clothes was still rather limited since it was mainly carried out by hand.
French tailor Barthélemy Thimonnier patented in 1830 the first sewing machine. Though at the beginning many people hailed the machine as a very useful tool, soon craftsmen opposed it and even attacked shops selling ready-made clothing: in 1854 there were 68 tailors in Venice and 35 merchants selling “ready-made” garments.
According to the records, when Maria Grimani Giustiniani got married in 1894, her trousseau included designs exclusively made for her or simply modified by Venetian dressmaker Luigia Vettor, but also ready-made garments bought from a merchant that also sold lace and fabrics, Michele Miola.
Venice started losing its prestige in the following years as more tailoring houses opened up in the rest of Italy.
If you want to know more about Venice and fashion check out the events and exhibitions often organised at the Museo Correr and at Palazzo Mocenigo. This first post on tailors and Venice closes here, but I promise you will discover a little bit more about tailors and Venice in a future post.
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