Seamstress, a woman authorized to work on different types of garments as a member of a guild established in 1675. [1] A mistress seamstress can only have one apprentice. The apprenticeship lasts three years. This apprenticeship must be followed by two years of work in the shops of other mistresses. Those who want to be accepted [as members of the guild] are obliged to make a masterpiece; only the daughters of mistresses are exempted. The guild is governed by six jurors, three of whom rotate annually. Their membership is distributed among four types of labor: the exclusive making of dresses and other articles of women’s clothing; children’s clothes; linen; and trimmings. [2]

Notes

1. For a comprehensive study of the mistress seamstress guild, see Clare Haru Crowston, Fabricating Women: The Seamstresses of Old Regime France, 1675-1791 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001). Crowston notes that couturière is often translated as “dressmaker” or “milliner” but argues instead for “seamstress,” given the term’s derivation from the French coudre , to sew. The seamstress’s guild was one of four all-female guilds in old regime France. The word couturier , the male equivalent to couturière , had died out by the turn of the eighteenth century. It is not featured in the Encyclopédie . See Crowston, 2-3.

2. Crowston describes the different divisions as follows: “The first type of specialization constituted by far the largest group, consisting of women who made dresses, dressing gowns, skirts, and other items of outerwear for their clients. They often went by the title of ‘dress seamstresses’ ( couturière en robes ) or couturières en habit , the term referring to the formal woman’s ensemble composed of a matching dress and petticoat. A smaller number of seamstresses concentrated on undergarments, including whaleboned stays and corsets. . . . An even smaller group focused on the production and sale of the hoopskirts that appeared in French fashion around 1718. . . . These two types of specialization took on increasing importance during the first half of the eighteenth century . . . . A fourth group of seamstresses made quilted skirts and performed the decorative stitching that became fashionable for skirts during the second half of the eighteenth century” ( Fabricating Women, 78). The workers who focused on undergarments, stays and corsets were the same ones who produced children’s clothes ( couturières en corps d'enfant ). Crowston describes linen workers ( couturières en linge ) as separate from the seamstresses organized under the guild: “Seamstresses were not the only women in eighteenth-century Paris who earned their living through needlework. Linen workers formed a large trade population, sewing the finished goods sold by mistress linen-drapers, such as undergarments, table linen, and bedding,” (ibid., 79).