The Boot and Shoe Trades in London and Paris in the Long Eighteenth Century

Exports, military commissions and an increasing population created not a
'generic' demand or a demand for high-quality goods, but a demand for products
that had to be standardised. In a productive world with few technological
changes, production could cope with an increasing demand either through
changes in the organisation of production (see chapter 5) or through the
adaptation of the physical and intrinsic features of a product to new patterns of
demand. In the eighteenth century a greater degree of standardisation was
sought. 55 Standardisation has not to be confused with mass production. While
the latter implies a particular way of producing, the former refers to specific
product requirements. It implied the construction of particular vocabularies
(based for instance on numbers as sizes) and the sharing of minimal standards of
quality. A similar experience occurred again in footwear production more than a
century later. When the Unites States became the world leader in the sector in
the second half of the nineteenth century, the sewing machine was a
technological advantage. However such a technological breakthrough was
accompanied by an unexpected standardisation of shoes that created new
product typologies, not very dissimilar for men and women.
The relevance of product standardisation has been here presented in relation
to demand and consumption, rather than to an exogenous process of
standardisation of production.56 The introduction of sizes and the development
of a ready-to-wear market have to be considered as a productive response to
changing consumers' necessities. 57 Bespoke remained in the course of the
eighteenth century a real alternative to mass-production. There was cultural and
social resistance. Ready-to-wear shoes were supposed to be and look like
bespoke shoes, while made in a limited number of different sizes. 58 Bespoke was
considered not only superior because of the customisation of the product, but
also for the different relationship between producer/retailer and customer. The
bespoke customer was allowed, for instance, consumer credit. However, we
J. Styles, 'Product innovation in early modern London', cit., pp. 162-66.
56 For clothing see the interesting article by W. Aldrich, 'Tailors cutting manuals and the
growing provision of popular clothing, 1770-1870', Textile History, XXXI - 2 (2000), pp. 163-
201.
B. Lemire, Dress, culture and commerce. The English clothing trade before the factory.
1660-1800 (Basingstoke, 1997), p. 56.
58 j Styles, 'Product innovation in early modern London', cit., pp. 162-5.
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