History & culture

French couturier, born Germaine Krebs, known from the 1930s onward for intricately hand-pleated silk jersey gowns draped directly on the body in a technique resembling classical Greek sculpture.

French couturier active from 1912 to 1939, celebrated for pioneering the bias cut and draping fabric directly on a miniature mannequin rather than working from flat sketches.

Patterns sold by post directly to home sewers from catalogs or magazines, a distribution model that let rural and small-town customers access current fashions from the 1870s onward.

A British government campaign launched in 1943 during wartime rationing that taught households to repair, alter, and repurpose existing clothing rather than buy new garments.

The manufacture of garments in large standardized batches using factory division of labor and specialized machinery, a shift that accelerated after the sewing machine's spread in the mid-19th century.

A traditional training path in which a novice works for years under an experienced tailor, progressing from basting and pressing to pattern drafting and full garment construction.

American sewing pattern company founded in 1870, known for the long-running McCall's Needlework and Crafts magazine and for pioneering printed, rather than perforated, pattern markings in the 1920s.

An annual online sewing challenge, started in 2010, in which participants pledge to wear garments they made themselves throughout May and document the experience on social media.

A hand-stitched reverse-appliqué textile made by Guna women of Panama and Colombia, formed by layering and cutting through colored cotton fabrics to reveal patterns beneath, traditionally worn as a blouse panel.