.. Fashion Industry ..

The textile industry was brought to America in the 19th century from England. But the apparel industry is an American creation at the turn of the 20th century in the Greater Boston area by Jewish tailors. Prior to their efforts garments were made individually for each woman by dressmakers. These tailors became aware of some commonalty in the shaping, fitting and making of garments, and pattern making was born, one pattern that would fit more than one woman. They developed a mathematical sizing system to accommodate most women with very few patterns. As businessmen they continued devel-oping these patterns to become paper “information systems” engineered to control quantities of exact reproductions in cutting and stitching clothing in mass production systems.

The apparel industry grew from these tailors/businessmen, as they built manufacturing factories for production. Pattern making was taught to “apprentices” who were called “designers” in the Boston area. Creative designers of styles in America didn't exist in the early 20th century. Americans were “copyists” or interpreters of the creative ideas coming from Paris ever since the 18th century. Some of these designers created booklets for teaching these systems mathematically - that came to be called “pattern drafting”. In the 1940s, when 16, I was old enough to work in these factories as a stitcher on sportswear, and met some of these pattern designers, whose information was passed to them by the old apprenticeship system. I also learned first hand about mass production systems that made America, and Boston area specifically, so famous for quality/quantity production - a system that in the second half of the century we taught to the rest of the world.