Strategies and boundaries : subcontracting and the London trades in the long eighteenth century

In the eighteenth century subcontracting was an important way of organising production in sectors producing as different commodities as clocks, coaches, footwear, furniture and scientific instruments. This article argues that subcontracting was not simply a form of cost reduction in labour-intensive and technologically unsophisticated sectors. Subcontracting could be seen as a way to respond to profound changes in the way commodities were produced, exchanged and consumed in an eighteenth-century metropolis like London. The expansion in size and complexity of the metropolitan market, the appearance of new commodities classified as semi-luxuries and fashion items, and the consequent re-assessment of traditional social structures and norms of production, made subcontracting a tool of organisational flexibility

The object of fashion : methodological approaches to the history of fashion

This essay considers the role of artefacts in the historical study of dress and fashion and suggests the existence of three different approaches. The field of history of dress and costume has a long tradition going back to the nineteenth century. It adopts the methodologies of art history and considers artefacts as central to the analysis of different periods and themes. In the last few decades the emergence of fashion studies has been interpreted as a distancing from artefacts. It is here claimed that fashion studies brought theoretical rigour and embraced a deductive methodology of analysis in which artefacts still played an important function. The final part of this essay introduces the reader to what I call the material culture of fashion, a hybrid methodology borrowed from anthropology and archeology in which the object is central in the study of social, cultural and economic practices that are time specific. It shows in particular the challenges and paybacks of such an approach

Asian knowledge and the development of calico printing in Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries

From the seventeenth century, the brilliance and permanence of colour and the exotic nature of imported Asian textiles attracted European consumers. The limited knowledge of colouring agents and the general absence of textile printing and dyeing in Europe were, however, major impediments to the development of a cotton textile-printing and -dyeing industry in Europe. This article aims to chart the rise of a European calico-printing industry in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries by analysing the knowledge transfer of textile-printing techniques from Asia to Europe

East & west : textiles and fashion in early modern Europe

What is the origin and essence of fashion? This question has engaged scholars of various disciplines over the past decades, most of whom approach this subject with a Western or European focus. This paper argues instead that Asia was also pivotal in the articulation of the fashion system in Europe. The long interaction between these regions of the world initiated profound changes that included the iteration of the early modem fashion system. Silk and later printed cotton textiles are uniquely important in world history as agents of new consumer tastes, and the embodiment of fashion in Europe. Particular attention is given to the process of the Europeanization of Asian textiles, and the consideration of the intellectual, commercial and aesthetic relationship between Europe and Asia, as the European printed industry developed. Fashion was not just created through the adoption and use of Asian goods, but it was also shaped by a culture in which print was central; and it was the printing of information-visual, as well as literate-along with printing as a productive process, which produced a type of fashionability that could be "read"

Émigrer con gusto : les émigrés italiens et leur contribution à l’économie européenne aux xviie et xviiie siècles

Le rôle des migrants italiens dans la diffusion du « goût italien » est bien connu dans au XXe siècle : le design, la mode et le « made in Italy » sont aujourd’hui largement appréciés. Mais on sait moins que la relation entre esthétique et culture italienne est portée par une lingue histoire, depuis la Renaissance. Ce lien s’est maintenu aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles quand l’économie italienne décline et se marginalise. Les migrants jouent un rôle clé pour conforter le goût italien dans les arts décoratifs, mais aussi dans la production de biens de consommation allant de la verrerie aux comestibles. Dans cet article, on examine deux cas : les ouvriers du stuc, issus du Tessin, une aire limitrophe entre l’Italie et la Suisse ; les détaillants de nourriture italienne à Londres dans la deuxième moitié du XVIIIe siècle. Si ces deux cas révèlent des différences structurelles, ils expriment aussi des traits communs qui tiennent à la manière dont ces communautés ont utilisé l’identité italienne et leurs liens sociaux pour soutenir leur cause personnelle et, à la fois, promouvoir l’esthétique et les codes de civilité italiens à travers l’Europe.The role of Italian migrants in spreading ‘Italian taste’ is well know in the twentieth century : Italian design, fashion and the ‘made-in-Italy’ are today appreciated globally. There is however little understanding of the fact that the relationship between aesthetic taste and Italian national culture has a long historical tradition going back to the Renaissance. This was kept alive during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries when Italy’s economy became marginal and declined. Migrants were key agents in upholding Italian taste in the decorative arts, but also in the production of consumer goods ranging from glass to food. This paper considers two cases : the stucco workers from the Ticino, a borderland area between Italy and Switzerland, who were active in central Europe and Britain in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries ; and the case of Italian food retailers in London in the second half of the eighteenth century. These two cases show different structures and working for these two communities, but reveal also some common features in the way both communities used Italian identity and social links to foster their individual cause and, at the same time, promote Italian aesthetics and polite manners throughout Europe

Il ruolo delle competenze nei sistemi di istruzione e formazione

It has been several years since the certification of skills became one of the policies of the European Community. Individual Member States have taken the concept of skill as a criterion of innovation because it is considered capable of dealing with both the theoretical and operational aspects and to connect such policies on education, training and employment. This paper aims to address the role of skills in institutional changes with regard to the terms of a new social model and for what concerns the higher education systems.Da diversi anni ormai la certificazione delle competenze rientra tra lepolitiche comunitarie. I singoli Stati membri hanno assunto come criterio di innovazione il concetto di competenza perché ritenuto capace di affrontare insieme gli aspetti sia operativi sia teorici e di connettersi cosi nelle politiche dell’istruzione, formazione e del lavoro. Il saggio intende affrontare il ruolo delle competenze nei cambiamenti istituzionali sia per quanto riguarda un nuovo modello sociale sia per quanto concerne i sistemi di istruzione superiore

The boot and shoe trades in London and Paris in the long eighteenth century

This thesis examines the evolution of pre-industrial shoemaking in London and Paris between the 1680s and the 1850s, treating this period as a whole. The relevance of these two cities is based on the international role they played in the clothing sector. Both cities not only dominated national manufacturing, but were able to influence the standard of production and European fashion. My research aims to construct a comparison of the two productive centres leading to a contrasting study of pre-conditions, strategies and influences in shoemaking. The starting point is a broad view of the 'regulative framework' of the sector: the importance of the raw material market (leather and textiles) and the role of guilds, their organisation and their control of the market. A chapter dedicated to consumption explores the relationship between the London shoe market and the influence of Parisian fashion. The interest in consumption is motivated also by the debate on what economic and social historians consider to be 'mass production' as the other face of 'mass consumption'. A chapter dedicated to retailing tries to link consumption to production. My research is then focused on a study of the organisation of production in the two cities. Different typologies of producers are related to different consumer choices showing how new consumer practices and retailing facilities re-shaped production. Finally the link between fashion changes and marketing techniques (for instance the use of sizes, brands or the distinction between right and left shoes) is a fruitful field of comparative research. The last two chapters of the thesis focus on the first half of the nineteenth century. Particular attention is dedicated to the importation into England of large quantities of women's shoes from France. The crisis that the London sector faced after 1815 explains a series of changes in the market and in the role played by the British metropolis in directing the sector. Very different appears to be the Parisian case, where provincial producers flourished only after the mechanisation of the sector. By the 1850s mechanisation meant the beginning of a new phase in the trade

La certificazione delle competenze come “libertà di agire”

In the current debate on European policies in the field of employment the concept of flexicurity plays a predominant role as a form of balance between the need for flexibility of employers and the need for safety of workers.Certification of skills is part of the active policies that favour processesof flexicurity. However, the active policies should not only be understood as a simple type of compensatory social protection for a flexible labour force, but also aimed at supporting the empowerment and capabilities of the subject.Nell’ambito dell’attuale dibattito europeo sulle politiche in materia di occupazione ricopre un ruolo predominante il concetto di flexicurity, quale forma di equilibrio tra il bisogno di flessibilità dei datori di lavoro e il bisogno di sicurezza dei lavoratori. La certificazione delle competenze si iscrive tra le politiche attive che favorisco processi di flexicurity. Tuttavia le politiche attive non devono essere intese solo come semplice protezione sociale di tipo compensatorio per una forza lavoro flessibile, bensì orientati a sostenere anche l’empowerment del soggetto e le sue capacità

La certificazione delle competenze Implicazioni sull’azione didattica dell’insegnante

The theme of “skills certification” is nowadays becoming part of EU State’s policies for education, training and employment – as long as they realize the Lisbon strategy, hence creating policies which aim at renew many systems, including the educational one. Such a “model” of innovation opposes Italian school system with an unavoidable change. This is so not only because it is required by EU but also because the school has to take hold again of its publicfunctions – having been lost the latter due to a decrease in skills and quality.Here emerges the need for a re-definition and the re-activation of a secondary education system which could be able to integrate a wide range of opportunities given by the contemporary formal and informal ways of learning.Only by doing this, the education system will be able to satisfy EU’s “invitation”: that of creating new formative systems. Hence, the role of the teacher gains a fundamental character within the new path of education.The purpose of my contribution is that of addressing the implications that “skill certification,” and its consequent definition of integrated school system, has on professional teachers involved in the organization of teaching and learning processes.Il tema della “certificazione delle competenze” sta entrando a pieno titolo nelle politiche educative, formative ed occupazionali di tutti gli Stati membri dell’Unione Europea in attuazione della strategia di Lisbona con conseguente messa a punto di policy tese ad innovare interi sistemi compreso quello scolastico. Questo “modello” di innovazione pone pertanto il sistema scolastico italiano di fronte ad un cambiamento dal quale non si potrà più tornare indietro, non tanto perché ce lo chiede l’Europa bensì perché la scuola deve non solo riappropriarsi delle proprie funzioni istituzionali che sta lentamente, ma inesorabilmente, perdendo dequalificandosi, ma soprattutto perché vi è la necessità e l’urgenza di definire e rendere operativo un sistema di formazione secondaria che integri al suo interno tutta l’infinita gamma di opportunità di apprendimenti informali e non formali offerti dall’attuale società dando così attuazione ai sempre più numerosi ed evidenti “inviti” dell’Unione Europea ad implementare e definire sistemi formativiintegrati. Il ruolo dell’insegnante assume così carattere fondamentale per un rinnovato modo di fare scuola.Lo scopo del mio contributo è quello di affrontare le implicazioni della “certificazione delle competenze” e della sua conseguente definizione di sistema scolastico integrato sugli insegnanti di professione coinvolti nell’organizzazione dei processi didattici e di apprendimento