When Is A Peignoir Set Like A Pizza?

I had pizza for lunch today, and it was delicious. So much so that I decided to write down, carefully, what I had chosen. I went to tear a piece of paper off my pad when I noticed that the box was telling me clearly that this pizza had been made especially for me. And I realized that  peignoirs and nightgowns can be just like a pizza if they are custom made.

What’s interesting about the observation is that until around hundred years ago, if you bought new clothes, they were always custom made. Custom made was normal. Most women not only had a dressmaker they were capable of making their own clothes. If you were rich then it was always the dressmaker, and the result was two fold.

1. Clothes used to fit.

2. There were no standard sizes.

Of course there have always been standard patterns, but all dressmakers were taught as part of their art, how to measure clients and adjust the patterns accordingly.  So although your great grandma wore corsets all day, she never worried that she was no longer a size six, because the concept didn’t exist. So how and why did things change?

In the 19th century fashion as we know it did not exist. Of course styles changed over time, but truthfully the concept of something being ‘in’ in January and ‘out’ in June was not something your ancestors or mine would have found credible, because it seems incredibly wasteful.  One man,as they say in the film trailers, changed that almost single handedly. His name was Charles Worth.

In 1858 Worth (an Englishman) opened a shop in Paris, and because he was a talented designer, he attracted the highest class of client, the Empress of France, the actress Sarah Bernhardt, the singer Dame Nellie Melba.  Worth had a distinctive style, he avoided fussiness and frills and created more ‘sophisticated’ clothes, once reason for this was simple. Simpler outlines were easier and cheaper to make.  Clients loved Worth and his ideas were considered, for the first time, better than their own. Instead of dictating what they wanted, the customers waited for him to show model clothes, they then chose a garment and had it made in their size and favorite color and fabric.

Worth was, without a doubt and artist, but his legacy was a complete change in the world of clothing manufacture. As the cult of the designer grew the customers became less and less important until the major requirement became the design. Women didn’t want to look beautiful, they wanted to wear Worth or Chanel or Dior and they wanted in such quantities that a new idea was born, that of creating clothes which didn’t fit any one particular person, but were made to general sizes.

Even so, until the sixties, most dress shops had a department whose job was to take the ‘standard’ dress and alter it to fit the client, but with time even this had died out in all but the best stores. These days it is important that the label reads the right size and the logo says the right thing. Flattering the customer seems to be incidental, and since items are made in standard colors or sizes, the opportunity to for true style and flare is very rare.

So, when is a peignoir like a pizza? When it’s made the old fashioned way, to fit in size and shape, to flatter in color and design. When it is made with the client and the purpose in mind. A peignoir is like a pizza when it is made to order.