Hedda Maartens — MA in fashion design, then eleven years in the industry designing for people who had no say in what they wore. Now writes about prescribed dress: how a garment was made to work, and what it was made to make a person into.
Every type of industry and extraction in one place — 6 chapters, Manufacturing, Construction and civil engineering, Mining and quarrying and the rest, with the plates and an inventory to download.
Wool, leather and a brass helmet. Firefighting dress before flame-resistant fibre was a bet that wool chars rather than melts, and that the helmet would take the rest.
Every type of land and food production in one place — 4 chapters, Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing and the rest, with the plates and an inventory to download.
Every type of skilled trades and craft in one place — 4 chapters, Building trades, Metalwork and welding, Automotive and the rest, with the plates and an inventory to download.
Between the wars, military tailoring did what architecture was doing: stripped ornament, raised the waist, simplified the silhouette to something a factory could cut.
Every type of commerce and service in one place — 7 chapters, Kitchen and culinary, Front of house, Hotel and accommodation and the rest, with the plates and an inventory to download.
Forty pieces of insignia at one magnification. Arranged not by seniority but by visual grammar: everything that signals by repetition, then by metal, then by position on the body.
Every type of security and guarding in one place — 3 chapters, Private security, Door supervision, Cash-in-transit and close protection and the rest, with the plates and an inventory to download.
A uniform designed in the North Atlantic and then sent somewhere it could not survive. The tropical whites are what happened when an institution had to admit the climate had won.
Every type of education and youth in one place — 3 chapters, School uniform, Academic dress, Uniformed youth organisations and the rest, with the plates and an inventory to download.
Institutional clothing is sized rather than tailored, and that is a design decision rather than a budget one. A uniform that fitted each wearer perfectly would individuate them.
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Every Research post and every Essay, free to read.
All Research posts — one uniform at a time, in archive photographs
