How New York City Came to Dominate the Fashion Scene- Research Paper

New York City has and always will be a huge hub for fashion. A fashion economy has existed in New York City for centuries from the start of the fur trade in the sixteenth century to skyrocketing in the twentieth century. New York City’s domination of the fashion industry is characterized by the new innovations in technology for textiles and fabrics, a high rise in immigration resulting in cheap labor, which in turn increased mass production. 

A fashion economy has always been present in New York City from the start of the fur trade. The Dutch West India bumped into North America in search of a shorter trading route to Asia. What was known as New Netherland at the time was a hub for trading fur. Fur at the time was seen as a necessity not as a luxury as it is seen today. Fur capes, earmuffs, hats, jackets, collars were essential because of the quality and warmth it provided. North America had a huge beaver population, thousands of pelts were being shipped back to Europe each year. In the seventeenth century, colonies in the New World that produced cotton started to increase which led to new textile innovations and mass production. This allowed for more demand for fabric because fabric became more affordable, leading to demand for fashionable clothing. The Enlightenment (eighteenth century) was an era of great growth in applied arts in the United States and Europe. The art of dressmaking boomed at the time. More technological advances in clothing and textile production like the steam engine and the flying shuttle allowed for the fashion scene to advance in becoming more available. 

The nineteenth century was the official start of the ready-to-wear industry in New York City. In 1818, Brooks Brothers was founded in Manhattan, they were the first producers of ready-to-wear suits for men. In 1820, the tape measure was introduced by an American named Joseph Courts. In the mid-1800s most clothes were mostly made at home or by private tailors and dressmakers until the development of wholesalers and retailers. (Rantisi 89). The emergence of department stores and mail-order catalogs, along with, the invention of the sewing machine and other innovations caused the creation of the ready-to-wear industry. (Rantisi 89). More factories began to emerge in New York City because the transport of materials and trimmings was more accessible due to New York City’s location. It had an immense seaport and the Hudson Valley seaway that allowed for the new invention of the steam-powered ship to navigate to. At this point in time, the transition between custom tailoring to ready-to-wear had occurred.

Rubber’s mass use in the nineteenth century boomed the ready-to-wear industry. Manuel Charpy explains in “Craze and Shame: Rubber Clothing during the Nineteenth Century in Paris, London, and New York City.":

Questioning fashion through material is a way to examine clothing from every angle: from the industrial angle, the social angle, the cultural angle, and from the history of the body. It is also a way to understand how, in the great cities such as Paris, London, and New York, which were centers of both industry and fashion, [the] fashion phenomena [was] formed in the industrial age. (434). 

Rubber became a staple for the fashion industry in the nineteenth century because of its multipurpose use, it gave fashion a new advantage, its high elasticity, waterproofness and ability to imitate other materials, allowed it to be used for intimates, shoes, clothing and more. The elasticity of rubber introduced fixed sizes in ready-to-wear clothing and shoes, it made it capable to shape bodies and gestures. Articles of rubber were seen all over the globe. It had a lot of monetary success exploding the fashion industry. “Rubber clothing and shoes were on display in elegant urban spaces, such as around the Palais-Royal, in the rue de la Paix or close to Galerie Vivienne in Paris, in London's West End and in Canal and Broadway Streets in New York City.” (Charpy 445). It was used for belts, garments, socks, stockings, and underwear. Rubber created vast fashion opportunities, it affected everyone beyond every social scale. Rubber was a symbol in popular and industrial clothes. The higher class used it for sportswear and shoes. While the working class used it to make uniforms and rubber gloves, its waterproof quality was great use in chemical industries, slaughterhouses, and fishmonger shops. (Charpy 446). All in all, rubber made a huge impact in the fashion industry in the nineteenth century, its multi-purpose use for all social classes created many opportunities to allow the fashion industry to immensely grow. 

According to the “Historical Dictionary of the Fashion Industry” mass production was on the rise, Francesca Sterlacci and Joanne Arbuckle state:

Catalog companies, and later department stores, sold mass merchandise to the increasing numbers of middle-class consumers. Retail stores multiplied, making clothing more accessible and cheaper to produce, and offered a broader selection to the masses. This inevitability eroded the influence of the haute couture and made-to-measure markets. (6).

In the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, New York City was seen as a major hub for work opportunity, which meant more immigration resulting in cheap labor which in turn increased the number of apparel manufacturing firms, wholesalers and retailers. Immigrant labor was vastly rising, immigrant communities and the retail/ wholesale shops they worked in were concentrated in the Lower East Side, “they were drawn to this location because of the presence of pre-existing communities and the ease with which they could develop networks, find jobs and find affordable accommodation.”(Rantisi 90). There were thousands on sweatshops all over Manhattan, there was a huge concentration located in the Garment District and on Broadway. The sweatshops they worked in had very unsanitary conditions which led to the rise of strikes leading to the development of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU). Women's Wear Daily, a daily trade journal was established in 1910 to report on the strikes and future development of the fashion industry. (Rantisi 91). Fashion allowed women to dominate the Manhattan city space, “Shopping was irreproachably legitimate, and respectable women could wander the Broadway commercial district without reproach in search of commodities” (Burrows, Wallace 812). Local department stores and large fashion houses were emerging, “department stores were beginning to break into show business themselves” (Schweitzer 57). Macy’s located in the Garment district was born in 1858. Henri Bendel was first opened in Greenwich Village in 1895 then moved to Midtown in the 1910s. Bergdorf Goodman located on Fifth Ave was founded in 1899. In 1902 a department store named Saks & Company, now known as Saks Fifth Avenue opened on 34th Street, later relocating its flagship store to Midtown Manhattan. In 1923, Barney Pressman opened his first store on Seventh Street and Seventh Ave, which is now known as Barneys New York. 

The interwar period continued to expand the fashion industry. At this point, fashion was not just for the upper-class society ladies, actresses, etc. It was for everyone. New inventions in fabric and machine production along with improvements in other techniques continued the growth of the ready-to-wear industry, women were now entering the workforce, therefore, they did not have time for custom-made fittings or to sew their own clothes. (Rantisi 92). Retailers began to move northward toward Midtown Manhattan because of residential shifts, “Manufacturers could acquire fancy showrooms to display their merchandise and had access to out-of-town buyers due to their close proximity to the Pennsylvania Railroad Station.” (Rantisi 92). The Garment District was initiated in the 1930s in midtown Manhattan with its main street being Seventh Avenue. By this time manufacturers were moving out of Manhattan. Retailers wanted to clean up the area to play on the consumer fantasy forming The Fifth Avenue Association to keep manufacturers out of the retail areas, they did not want sweatshops or laborers present in the place of their fashion luxury retail. The apparel manufacturing firms and the retail shops that were present all over the Garment District played a vital role in making New York City a well-established market place for out of town buyers. Madison Avenue started to become very popular at the time for high-end retail shops because a lot of wealthy people now lived in that area.

The ready-to-wear industry allowed for New York City to invent itself as a fashion capital because it was a huge apparel manufacturing hub, unlike Paris which was the source of design innovation, Elizabeth Currid states in “The Warhol Economy: How Fashion, Art, and Music Drive New York City-New Edition.”:

Despite the expansion of the fashion industry within New York City, the design inspiration remained decidedly Parisian, with most clothing designs, instructors, and concepts coming from Europe’s fashion capital. It was only after World War II that, as geographer Norma Rantisi puts it, New York ascended as a world fashion capital. ( 22).    

New York City has been dominating the fashion industry for almost one hundred years. New York City’s prime location, innovations in technology, and the rise of immigration all contributed to New York City becoming a huge apparel manufacturing firm, transforming it to being one of the major cities in the world for fashion. Today the fashion design and manufacturing industry is worth over a trillion dollars worldwide. The most prominent fashion capitals, Paris, London, Milan, and New York City continue to lead, but the Internet has exploded the industry. 

Bibliography MLA

Burrows, Edwin G., and Mike Wallace. Gotham: a history of New York City to 1898. Oxford University Press, 1998.

Charpy, Manuel. "Craze and Shame: Rubber Clothing during the Nineteenth Century in Paris, London, and New York City." Fashion Theory 16.4 (2012): 433-460.

Currid, Elizabeth. The Warhol Economy: How Fashion, Art, and Music Drive New York City-New Edition. Princeton University Press, 2008.

Rantisi, Norma M. "The ascendance of New York fashion." International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 28.1 (2004): 86-106.

Schweitzer, Marlis. When Broadway Was the Runway: Theater, Fashion, and American Culture, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com.rlib.pace.edu/lib/pace/detail.action?docID=3441920.

Sterlacci, Francesca, and Joanne Arbuckle. Historical dictionary of the fashion industry. Rowman & Littlefield, 2017.