Book Chapter

Re-fashioning Industrial Revolution. Fibres, fashion and technical innovation in British cotton textiles, 1600-1780

  • John Styles

The early years of the British Industrial Revolution were dominated by mechanical innovations in cotton spinning. They emerged at a time when raw cotton prices were unprecedentedly high and the supply of all-cotton fabrics from India, the world’s principal producer of cotton textiles, had contracted dramatically. Most «cotton» textiles manufactured in Britain in the mid-18th century were combinations of expensive cotton yarn and cheap linen yarn. Faced with rising material costs, manufacturers economised by increasing the proportion of cheaper linen yarn. The most fashionable cotton products were, however, made entirely from cotton, or required a fixed proportion of cotton yarn. As the cost of cotton rose, their rapidly rising sales provided the principal inducement to improve quality and cut costs by inventing machines for spinning cotton yarn.

  • Keywords:
  • Cotton,
  • fashion,
  • fibres,
  • yarns,
  • industrial revolution.,
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John Styles

University of Hertfordshire, United Kingdom - ORCID: 0000-0003-0826-7546

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  • Publication Year: 2022
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  • Content License: CC BY 4.0
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Chapter Information

Chapter Title

Re-fashioning Industrial Revolution. Fibres, fashion and technical innovation in British cotton textiles, 1600-1780

Authors

John Styles

Language

English

DOI

10.36253/978-88-5518-565-3.06

Peer Reviewed

Publication Year

2022

Copyright Information

© 2022 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Bibliographic Information

Book Title

La moda come motore economico: innovazione di processo e prodotto, nuove strategie commerciali, comportamento dei consumatori / Fashion as an economic engine: process and product innovation, commercial strategies, consumer behavior

Editors

Giampiero Nigro

Peer Reviewed

Number of Pages

422

Publication Year

2022

Copyright Information

© 2022 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Publisher Name

Firenze University Press

DOI

10.36253/978-88-5518-565-3

ISBN Print

978-88-5518-564-6

eISBN (pdf)

978-88-5518-565-3

eISBN (xml)

978-88-5518-566-0

Series Title

Datini Studies in Economic History

Series ISSN

2975-1241

Series E-ISSN

2975-1195

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