TRANSACTIONS Off SECTION F. 



561 



Tailohing Trade. 

 The following shows the increase of employment in the tailoring trade over 

 the ten years, 1901 to 1911 :— 



Tailoring is a term applied to the making up of various qualities and kinds 

 of outer garments — male and female— ranging from best bespoke work, e.g., 

 men's Court and dress suits, to Kaffir clothing, which is shipped mainly to 

 South Africa, and cheap dungarees such as workmen's overalls. The trade 

 now employs about 143,000 women, and since the War this number has been 

 increased by about 20,000, while the total number of men employed has decreased 

 by almost 10 per cent. In no other trade save munitions has the increased 

 employment of women been more marked since the War. It is impossible, how- 

 ever, to talk in terms of the trade as a whole, and it is necessary to distinguish 

 its various branches in order to appreciate the nature of the increase of women's 

 employment. The trade may perhaps conveniently be classified into the fol- 

 lowing branches : 



Men's Retail Bespoke ranges from Court and dre-ss suits to high-class 

 suits made to measure. This part of the trade employs almost entirely skilled 

 male labour. In the very best work the suit is made practically throughout, 

 mostly by hand, by one person — the individual system. Most of the work is, 

 however, done on the sectional system (sub-division of labour — cutting, basting, 

 machining, pressing, and finishing). The War affected this part of the trade 

 first, and it has never recovered from the depression, save temporarily for a few 

 weeks during the height of the Spring season. Orders for officers' uniforms have 

 partially counterbalanced the loss of civilian trade. The men who have left 

 the tailoring trade almost all belonged to this branch. 



Ladies' Bespoke. — Much of what applies to men's bespoke work applies to 

 this branch of the trade, though generally speaking the work is lighter. It is 

 for the most part a man's trade and, like men's retail bespoke work, needs con- 

 siderable experience and skill. The War has caused a considerable depression in 

 this part of the trade. 



Ready Made and Wholesale Bespoke. — Ready-made work is cheap work done 

 to stock sizes and supplied to retail shops or to merchants abroad. Wholesale 

 bespoke consists of either ' ready-made altered to fit ' or of orders for a com- 

 paratively cheap class of work, for wliich individual measurements are taken and 

 passed on to the factory or workshop by retail shops or ' tally-men ' who obtain 

 orders from door to door in working-class neighbourhoods. In this work the 

 cost of production is very much lower than in the retail bespoke branch of the 

 trade, and depends to a large extent upon the use of machinery and power and a 

 highly evolved sub-divisional system, while the work employs (at any rate in the 

 factories) a large proportion of female labour (about 85 per cent.). The work is 

 done either in factories or in small (mostly Jewish) workshops, to which it is 

 almost ahvays sub-contracted from the factories or wholesale agents. The chief 

 centres of this branch of the trade are London, Leeds, Norwich, Manchester, 

 and Bristol. There is a larger proportion of small workshops in London than 

 in the North of England, and provincial centres of the trade such as Norwich 

 employ a greater proportion of female labour, owing probably to the fewer 

 alternative avenues for women's employment to be found in these centres. 

 London is the centre in which the small master or sub-contractor with his work- 

 shop flourishes, and he has played a large part in the making up of khaki 

 clothing. He is generally a Jew, and normally does the lower class of retail 

 bespoke and the better class of wholesale bespoke work, and though he 

 employs in proportion less female labour than the factories^ he is able, owing 

 to the skill and speed of his workmen and the way in which he organises and 

 sub-divides his work, successfully to compete with the factory save on the 

 cheaper grades of work. 



1915. o o 



