Wardrobe merchant is what certain female resellers are called who go door to door carrying basic used clothing items, or sometimes even new merchandise consigned to them by merchants. [1] These sorts of women earn their living through the small profits they make, or those brought by the new goods, or through a certain commission that is ordinarily given to them for buying and selling such items. It is these women who sell the largest share of illicit goods; they also fairly often conduct a small trade in precious stones and jewels.

Note

1. Jaucourt extracted this article unaltered from the entry, “Revendeur, Revendeuse,” in Jacques Savary des Brûlons (1657-1716), Dictionnaire universel de commerce , vol. 3 (Paris, 1723). See also Jaucourt’s entry for Wardrobe reseller. Jaucourt again copies directly from Savary’s third definition of “Toilette,” but in this instance he does not cite him. This entry stresses the door-to-door nature of the work, the fact that the seller offered old items as well as new ones, and that she both sold goods to and bought goods from her clients. It also pegs these women as not only sellers of contraband, but as those who sold the majority of such illicit goods. Savary’s entry for “Toilette” contains a cross-reference back to “Revendeur, Revendeuse,” while Jaucourt’s does not.