Shoes from Pinet to the Present
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- Proceedings of the Korea Society of Costume Conference
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- 2001.08a
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- pp.11-13
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- 2001
For those unfamiliar with the shoe world, Pinet (1817-1897) was a contemporary of Worth, the great Parisian couturier. So I look at the glamour shoes and the world of haute couture, and indeed the development of the named designer. That is a concept we are all familiar with now. So it is not easy to comprehend the lack of names for the exquisite work before 1850. Straightway I have to say that the number of noted shoe designers is far fewer than famous dress designers, but I will introduce you to some of them, against the background of contemporary shoe fashions. Franc;ois Pinet was born in the provinces (probably Touraine) in 1817, two years after the end of the Napoleonic Wars. His father, an ex-soldier, settled to shoemaking, a comparatively clean and quiet trade. It had a tradition of literacy, interest in politics, and was known as the gentle craft, which attracted intelligent people. We should presume father would be helped by the family. It was usual for a child to begin by the age of 5-6, tying knots, sweeping up, running errands and gradually learning the job. His mother died 1827, and father 1830 when he was 13, and at the time when exports of French shoes were flooding world markets. He went to live with a master shoemaker, was not well treated, and three years later set out on the tour-de- France. He worked with masters in Tours and Nantes, where he was received as Compagnon Cordonnier Bottier du Devoir as Tourangeau-Ia rose dAmour (a name to prove most appropriate). He went on to Bordeaux, where at 19 he became president of the local branch. In 1841 he went to Paris, and in 1848, revolution year, as delegate for his corporation, he managed to persuade them not to go on strike. By now the shoemakers either ran or worked for huge warehouses, and boots had replaced shoes as the main fashion. In 1855 Pinet at the age of 38 set up his own factory, as the first machines (for sewing just the uppers) were appearing. In 1863 he moved to new ateliers and shop at Rue ParadisPoissoniere 44, employing 120 people on the premises and 700 outworkers. The English Womans Domestic Magazine in 1867 records changes in the boots: the soles are now wider, so that it is no longer necessary to walk on the uppers. There is interest in eastern Europe, the Polonaise boots with rosette of cord and tassels and Bottines Hongroises withtwo rows of buttons, much ornamented. It comments on short dresses, and recommends that the chaussure should correspond to the rest of the toilet. This could already be seen in Pinets boots: tassels and superb flower embroidery on the higher bootleg, which he showed in the Paris Exposition that year. I think his more slender and elegant Pinet heel was also patented then or 1868. I found little evidence for colour-matching: an English fashion plate of 1860 shows emerald green boots with a violetcoloured dress.
The need for ready-to-wear clothing increases as the problem comes to arise from the fit of custommade clothing due to the characteristics of middle-aged women's somatotype. At this point of time, a study on the realities of production of custom-made clothing in middle-aged women's clothing business firms is of very greatly significance. Therefore, this study was intended to identify the problem and improvements through the survey research of production of custom-made clothing in middle-aged women's clothing business firms and further present the plan for development of custom-made clothing business. The questionnaire was framed based on the contents extracted from the preliminary questionnaire research for the pattern section chief of each business firm. Collected data were statistically processed using the SPSS 10.0 Windows program. As a result, the following findings were obtained: 1. The target age of the middle-aged women's clothing business firms ranged from more than 45 years to less than 50 years of age. Clothing business firms much made inroads into the ready-to-wear clothing market largely in the 1980s and the 1990s. Their active entry into the custom-made clothing market occurred in the 1970s and the 1980s. 2. In terms of the clothing production method of middle-aged women's clothing firms, some private boutique and designer brand clothing firms entered the clothing market with a focus on custom-made clothing in the beginning of its organization and introduced the production method of ready-to-wear clothing in accordance with changes in production methods and consumers' needs and wants. National brand clothing firms manufactured clothing with a focus on ready-to-wear clothing from the beginning of its organization, but at last they manufactured both partial custom-made and whole custom-made as the problem arose from ready-to-wear clothing. Seeing that their clothing production showed the ratio readyto-wear to custom-made clothing of 2.58:1. And it was found that the manufacture of ready-to-wear and custom-made clothing took into consideration the great difference in the pattern, size and design plan. The research of the clothing production process showed that whole custom-made and partial custommade were distinguished according to whether or not the sample was presented. 3. The ready-to-wear pattern of middle-aged women's clothing firms were used with a focus on the 'patternmaker-developed pattern' and company-developed pattern'. Most clothing businesses produced clothing in 4 to 5 basic sizes, which is found to be insufficient to complement the physical characteristics of middle-aged women with many specific somatotypes. In the pattern of custom-made clothing, the 'pattern of ready-to-wear were applied' or the 'customized pattern was developed'. Actual measurements were most used as the size of custom-made, and accordingly it is predicted that the level of satisfaction is higher with the fit of custom-made clothing than that of ready-to-wear. The selling place and the head office showed the similar percent as the place for measuring the size of custom-made clothing. Size measurers were mostly the shop master. And it was found that most clothing business firms had a problem when the measured size was applied to the pattern. Accordingly, it is necessary to provide education on size measurement for shop masters. 4. It was found that in the middle-aged women's clothing firms, the pattern correction of the length of sleeve, jacket and slacks occupied the highest percent. Accordingly, it is necessary to provide for the size system to complement the accurate somatotype characteristics of middle-aged women. 5. In custom-made clothing customer management, most firms engaged in customer somatotype management through size management. They provided customers with commodity information by informing them of the sales and event period and practiced human management for customers by maintaining the get-together and friendly relationship. 6. Middle-aged women's clothing businesses responded that it would be necessary to improve the fit of custom-made clothing and complement their pursuit for individuality as the plan to improve its quality. In consequence, it suggests that middle-aged women's clothing businesses should provide middle-aged women with the clothing of better-suited size and refined design. Middle-aged women's clothing businesses responded that it was the most urgent task to form the custom-made clothing manufacturing team as the plan to expand the custom-made clothing market, which is identified as their emphasis on the systematized production of custom-made clothing.