FIND YOUR STYLE

SEWING in Victorian literature is, as I said in an earlier post, associated with beautiful young women, who need to work for their bread and are being exploited by unscrupulous fashion-house owners.

Though sewing was exhausting work, however, it enabled a young woman to make a living and survive in an unfriendly and uncaring world.

Ruth, left an unmarried mother in Elizabeth Gaskell's eponymous novel, first thinks to turn to sewing in order to raise her child. Sewing, seamstressing and embroidery were important female knowledge and a female art.

I still think that seamstressing can give a woman great freedom. I don't agree that fashion is not as creative as we think just because (as the argument goes) there are specific designs each year. 

We can create within the designs of the day, and use them to find our own style!