Full access
Full access
Commerce and service

Commerce and service

Uniform as a customer-facing surface, where the garment is doing marketing as much as work.

First Names Only

The name badge is a small object with a large asymmetry in it: the wearer’s first name is legible to a stranger who gives nothing back.
A modern employee name badge, a waitress uniform, and a 1965 conference badge

Collection: Commerce and Service

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.
Plates from the Nametape archive of commerce and service

Livery, and Who It Belonged To

A servant in livery wore their employer’s colours, cut from the employer’s cloth, on the employer’s account. The garment said whose you were before it said what you did.
A household staff photographed together, a Pullman porter's coat, and a maid's dress with cap