The early years of the British Industrial Revolution were dominated by mechanical innovations in cotton spinning. They emerged at a time when raw cotton prices were unprecedentedly high and the supply of all-cotton fabrics from India, the world’s principal producer of cotton textiles, had contracted dramatically. Most «cotton» textiles manufactured in Britain in the mid-18th century were combinations of expensive cotton yarn and cheap linen yarn. Faced with rising material costs, manufacturers economised by increasing the proportion of cheaper linen yarn. The most fashionable cotton products were, however, made entirely from cotton, or required a fixed proportion of cotton yarn. As the cost of cotton rose, their rapidly rising sales provided the principal inducement to improve quality and cut costs by inventing machines for spinning cotton yarn.
University of Hertfordshire, United Kingdom - ORCID: 0000-0003-0826-7546
Titolo del capitolo
Re-fashioning Industrial Revolution. Fibres, fashion and technical innovation in British cotton textiles, 1600-1780
Autori
John Styles
Lingua
English
DOI
10.36253/978-88-5518-565-3.06
Opera sottoposta a peer review
Anno di pubblicazione
2022
Copyright
© 2022 Author(s)
Licenza d'uso
Licenza dei metadati
Titolo del libro
La moda come motore economico: innovazione di processo e prodotto, nuove strategie commerciali, comportamento dei consumatori / Fashion as an economic engine: process and product innovation, commercial strategies, consumer behavior
Curatori
Giampiero Nigro
Opera sottoposta a peer review
Numero di pagine
422
Anno di pubblicazione
2022
Copyright
© 2022 Author(s)
Licenza d'uso
Licenza dei metadati
Editore
Firenze University Press
DOI
10.36253/978-88-5518-565-3
ISBN Print
978-88-5518-564-6
eISBN (pdf)
978-88-5518-565-3
eISBN (xml)
978-88-5518-566-0
Collana
Datini Studies in Economic History
ISSN della collana
2975-1241
e-ISSN della collana
2975-1195