MAKING AND COMMISSIONING GOODS. CRAFTSMANSHIP IN THE PARISIAN HOSIERY SECTOR AT THE TURN OF THE 18TH CENTURY

Abstract

This article examines the extent to which the activities of manufacturing and selling hosiery in Paris, between 1670 and 1730, can be considered to be a form of craftsmanship. The sector was embedded amongst dierent guilds, dierent economic and political privileges and constituted a unique group of actors with a specific mechanical and independent workforce. Analysing the conflicts that are typical of such guilds can help understand how this group was organized as the manufacturing of stockings and bonnets involved a number of dierent types of distinctive techniques. Here, as in other sectors, what characterizes the nature of such “craftsmen” of the Ancien Régime is mostly clearly revealed through analyzing their relationships with external social figures and commercial outlets. In particular, within the industry’s supply chain, a certain level of ambivalence was maintained with regard to what goods were being made by certain actors and what goods were being commissioned from other actors.