Techniques of marking and labelling textiles in the nineteenth centuryin the context of market creation of brands – as illustrated with the exampleof design houses and department stores
Techniques of marking and labelling textiles in the nineteenth centuryin the context of market creation of brands – as illustrated with the exampleof design houses and department stores

Summary/Abstract: The article presents the development of methods for labelling textile products – mainly clothing – in the nineteenth century and in the early twentieth century. The development of fashion houses offering clothes tailor-made to individual orders, and of large department stores selling ready-made clothing meant that clothing items were increasingly frequently provided with textile labels. The informative value of the latter grew along with the evolution of sales techniques and the increase in consumption. Over time, they have become indispensable in the process of creating clothing brand recognition. Clothing labels that have been preserved to our times carry information about the product and its manufacturer, and indirectly also about many aspects of the silk textile production market and textile trade. Exploring these aspects of textile history lays the groundwork for further, interdisciplinary research. The paper outlines the general characteristics of various ways of mark-ing textiles, also in the centuries preceding the nineteenth century, and it presents the practice of indirect marking of clothing products. The marking of silk clothing fabrics and the beginnings of the development of legal protection of trademarks in international terms are also briefly discussed. The basis of the conducted research was a thorough comparative analysis of tags and labels preserved in the author’s extensive collections and in digitized museum collections. The article proves that in the nineteenth century the marking of textiles was treated in a way that we would now consider modern, and most of the forms and methods of marking textiles that were popular then are still used today.

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