Abstract
Although much is already known about the textile industries in early modern Antwerp, less research has been done on consumption and retailing of textiles and clothing.1 In his exemplary study of the tailoring business in the Southern Netherlands, Harald Deceulaer accumulated a great deal of valuable evidence, yet we are still short of a comprehensive overview of textile retailing in general.2 Moreover, a long-term study of changes in the material culture of Antwerp still awaits publication. Therefore, the major goals of this chapter are three. In the absence of sufficient preparatory studies, we will first try to map the changes in the types of textiles being retailed in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Antwerp. This will be done by taking into account both structural supply-side and demand-side changes in textile production and consumption, and by linking these to seventeenth- and eighteenth-century retail practices. Indeed, as a city renowned for producing different sort of textiles, the retailing landscape for textiles in Antwerp cannot be fully understood without taking supply side changes into account. Similarly, alterations in consumer preferences and practices profoundly affected the size, incomes and business strategies of textile retailers. However, the precise relationship between economies of shop-keeping and consumers’ actions still needs further exploration. Hence, the second aim of this chapter is to map the complex interplay between production, consumption and distribution in an era that witnessed rapid and interrelated supply-side and demand-side transformations.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
A.K.L. Thijs (1988) ‘Structural changes in the Antwerp industry from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century’, in H. Van der Wee (ed.), The Rise and Decline of Urban Industries in Italy and in the Low Countries (Late Middle Ages — Early Modern Times), Studies in Social and Economic History (Leuven: Leuven University Press), p. 94
B. Blondé (2004) ‘Bossche bouwvakkers en belastingen. Nadenken over economische groei, levensstandaard en sociale ongelijkheid in de zestiende eeuw’, in B. Blondé, B. De Munck and F. Vermeylen (eds.), Doodgewoon. Mensen en hun dagelijks leven in de geschiedenis. Liber amicorum Alfons K.L. Thijs (Antwerp: UFSIA, Centrum voor Bedrijfsgeschiedenis); A.K.L. Thijs (1969) De zijdenijverheid te Antwerpen in de zeventiende eeuw, vol. Pro civitate (Brussels)
A.K.L. Thijs (1986) ‘The River Scheldt closed for Two Centuries, 1585–1790’, in F. Suykens (ed.), Antwerp. A Port for all Seasons (Antwerp: MIM)
A.K.L. Thijs (1993) ‘Antwerp’s luxury industries: the pursuit of profit and artistic sensitivity’, in J. Van der Stock (ed.), Antwerp, Story of a Metropolis: 16th–17th Century (Ghent: Snoeck-Ducaju)
A.K.L. Thijs (1987) Van ‘werkwinkel’ tot ‘fabriek’. De textielnijverheid te Antwerpen van het einde der vijftiende tot het begin der negentiende eeuw (Brussels: Gemeentekrediet)
H. Deceulaer (1998) ‘Guildsmen, entrepreneurs and market segments. The case of the garment trades in Antwerp and Ghent (sixteenth to eighteenth centuries)’, International Review of Social History, 43, pp. 1–29.
N. Coquery (2011) Tenir boutique à Paris au XVIIIe siècle. Luxe et demi-luxe (Paris: Editions du comité des travaux historiques et scientifiques).
C. Walsh (1995) ‘Shop design and the display of goods in eighteenth-century London’, Journal of Design History, 8, pp. 157–76
J. Stobart (1998) ‘Shopping streets as social space: leisure, consumerism and improvement in an eighteenth-century town’, Urban History, 25, pp. 3–21
J. Beckett and C. Smith (2000) ‘Urban renaissance and consumer revolution in Nottingham, 1688–1750’, Urban History, 27, pp. 31–50
J. Stobart and A. Hann (2004) ‘Retailing revolution in the eighteenth century? Evidence from North-West England’, Business History, 46, pp. 174–94
J. Stobart (2004) ‘Leisure and shopping in the small towns of Georgian England. A regional approach’, Journal of Urban History, 31, pp. 479–503
J. Stobart and A. Hann (2005) ‘Sites of consumption: the display of goods in provincial shops in eighteenth-century England’, Cultural and Social History, 2, pp. 165–88.
J. Thirsk (1978) Economic Policy and Projects: The Development of a Consumer Society in Early Modern England (Oxford); N. McKendrick, J. Brewer and J.H. Plumb (1982) The Birth of a Consumer Society: The Commercialisation of Eighteenth-Century England (London: Europa Publications); Beckett and Smith, ‘Urban renaissance’; Stobart, ‘Leisure and shopping’.
B. Blondé and I. Van Damme (2010) ‘Retail growth and consumer changes in a declining urban economy, Antwerp (1650–1750)’, The Economic History Review, 63, pp. 638–63.
H. Van der Wee (1988) ‘Industrial dynamics and the process of urbanization and de-urbanization in the Low Countries from the Late Middle Ages to the Eighteenth Century. A synthesis’, in H. Van der Wee (ed.), The Rise and Decline of Urban Industries in Italy and in the Low Countries (Late Middle Ages-Early Modern Times) (Leuven: Leuven University Press).
B. Blondé (1998) ‘Disparities in the development of the Brabantine urban network: urban centrality, town-countryside relationships, and transportation development’, in Clara Eugenia Nunez (ed.), Recent Doctoral Research in Economic History (Madrid: Universidad nacional de educacion a distancia), pp. 41–52.
J. De Vries (1984) European Urbanization, 1500–1800 (London: Methuen), Appendix 1.
H. Deceulaer (2001) Pluriforme patronen en een verschillende snit. Sociaal-economische, institutionele en culturele transformaties in de kledingsector in Antwerpen, Brussel en Gent, ca.1585–ca.1800, IISG-studies en essays (Amsterdam: Stichting Beheer IISG), pp. 196–9.
B. Blondé (2002) ‘Art and economy in seventeenth-and eighteenth-century Antwerp. A view from the demand side’, in Economia e Arte Secc. XIII-XVIII. Atti delle Trenteessima Settimana di Studi, 30 aprile–4 maggio 2000 (Florence); I. Van Damme (2010) ‘Middlemen and the creation of a “fashion revolution”: the experience of Antwerp in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries’, in B. Lemire (ed.), The Force of Fashion in Politics and Society. Global Perspectives from Early Modern to Contemporary Times (Farnham: Ashgate).
F. Smekens (1952) ‘Ambachtswezen en “nieuwe nijverheid”’, in Antwerpen in de 18de eeuw: instelling, economie, cultuur (Antwerp: Sikkel), p. 65, 79; Van Damme, ‘Middlemen’, p. 19.
F. Sorber (1989) ‘Kledij in de Antwerpse archieven uit de zeventiende eeuw’, in Antwerpen in de XVIIde eeuw (Antwerp: Genootschap voor Antwerpse Geschiedenis), p. 468.
Retail ratios amply confirm this pattern: in 1636 Antwerp counted about one retailer for every 44 inhabitants. This ratio stabilised throughout the seventeenth century. During the eighteenth century however, the number of retailers spectacularly increased compared to the declining (and slow recovering) population: in 1755 and 1788 one retailer for only every 25 inhabitants can be discerned. Sources: MAA, Gilden & Ambachten, 4215, 4217, 4218, 4219, 4232; SAA, Pk, 2561–3; B. Blondé (1999) Een economie met verschillende snelheden. Ongelijkheden in de opbouw en de ontwikkeling van het Brabantse stedelijke netwerk (ca. 1750–ca. 1790) (Brussels: Paleis der Academiën), pp. 255 and 412–13
P.M.M. Klep (1981) Bevolking en arbeid in transformatie. Een onderzoek naar de ontwikkelingen in Brabant, 1700–1900 (Nijmegen: Socialistiese Uitgeverij) p. 354.
The resulting Antwerp retail ratio was even denser than that of London in the same period (only one retailer for every 30 inhabitants). H.C. Mui and L.H. Mui (1989) Shops and Shopkeeping in Eighteenth-Century England (Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press), pp. 37–41.
Ilja Van Damme (2007) Verleiden en verkopen. Antwerpse kleinhandelaars en hun klanten in tijden van crisis (ca.1648–ca.1748), Studies Stadsgeschiedenis, vol. 2, (Amsterdam: Aksant), pp. 187–228; Blondé and Van Damme, ‘Retail growth’.
J. De Vries (2008) The Industrious Revolution. Consumer Behavior and the Household Economy, 1650 to the Present (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
C. Shammas (1994) ‘The decline of textile prices in England and British America prior to industrialisation’, Economic History Review, 47, pp. 483–507.
B. Willems (2009) Leven op de pof. Krediet bij de Antwerpse middenstand in de achttiende eeuw, vol. 5, Studies Stadsgeschiedenis (Amsterdam: Aksant).
L. Van Aert (2009) ‘Buurtwinkels en winkelstraten. De evolutie van het Antwerpse winkelbedrijf in de nieuwe tijd’, Stadsgeschiedenis, 4, pp. 21–44.
M. Coppens (1983) ‘“Au magasin de Paris.” Une boutique de mode à Anvers dans la première moitié du XVIIIe siècle’, Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Oudheidkunde en Kunstgeschiedenis, 52, pp. 81–107.
L. Van Aert and D. Van Den Heuvel (2007) ‘Sekse als Sleutel tot Succes? Vrouwen en de Verkoop van Textiel in de Noordelijke en Zuidelijke Nederlanden 1650–1800’, Textielhistorische bijdragen, 47, pp. 7–32.
H. Coppens and K. Degryse (1994) ‘Levenswijze en consumptiepatroon van een Antwerps adellijk gezin. De huishoudboeken van Charles Bernard van de Werve de Vorselaer (1764–1786)’, in Een kompas met vele streken. Studies over Antwerpen, scheepvaart en archivistiek aangeboden aan dr. Gustaaf Asaert ter gelegenheid van zijn 65ste verjaardag, Archiefkunde (Antwerpen: Vlaamse vereniging voor bibliotheek-, archief-en documentatiewezen), p. 61.
C. Sargentson (1998) ‘The manufacture and marketing of luxury goods: the marchands merciers of late 17th-and 18th-century Paris’, in R. Fox and A. Turner (eds.), Luxury Trades and Consumerism in Ancien Régime Paris. Studies in the History of the Skilled Workforce (Aldershot: Ashgate)
D. Edwards (2005) ‘The upholsterer and the retailing of domestic furnishings 1600–1800’, in B. Blondé et al. (eds.), Retailers and Consumer Changes in Early Modern Europe. England, France, Italy and the Low Countries (Tours: Presses Universitaires François-Rabelais); Roche, La culture des apparances, p. 309.
De Vries, The Industrious Revolution, p. 170; B. Blondé and G. Vermeesch (2010) ‘Het falen van de vroegmoderne stad, 1500–1800?’, Stadsgeschiedenis, 5, 1, pp. 108–9.
G. Shaw (1992) ‘The study of retail development’, in J. Benson and G. Shaw (eds.), The Evolution of Retail Systems, c. 1800–1914 (Leicester: Leicester University Press), pp. 1–14
P. Knox (1982) Urban Social Geography (London: Longman), p. 113
H. Carter and C.R. Lewis (1990) An Urban Geography of England and Wales in the Nineteenth Century (London: Arnold), pp. 89–90
B. Blondé (1992) ‘Winkelen te Lier. Een onderzoek naar de relatie stad-platteland op het einde van de achttiende eeuw’, in Het stedelijke netwerk in België in historisch perspectief (1350–1850). Een statistische en dynamische benadering (Brussel: Gemeentekrediet), p. 123; Blondé, Een economie, p. 28
D. Keene (2006) ‘Sites of desire: shops, selds and wardrobes in London and other English cities, 1100–1550’, in B. Blondé et al. (eds.), Buyers and Sellers. Retail Circuits and Practices in Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Turnhout: Brepols), pp. 125–54.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2014 Bruno Blondé, Laura Van Aert and Ilja Van Damme
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Blondé, B., Van Aert, L., Van Damme, I. (2014). ‘According to the Latest and Most Elegant Fashion’: Retailing Textiles and Changes in Supply and Demand in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Antwerp. In: Stobart, J., Blondé, B. (eds) Selling Textiles in the Long Eighteenth Century. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137295217_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137295217_9
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-45177-7
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-29521-7
eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)