Tailoring Culture in the Early Republican Era and the Building of the National Material Culture

Abstract

In the course of the Republican era a modernist industrial discourse emerged to encourage industrial development and national production in Turkey. The modernization of the nation was regarded equiavalent to the modernization of the women within this discourse and the roles of Republican women including fashion had been defined by the current ideology. For its particulars, during the 1930's appearance of Turkish woman was formed through the agency of various state-funded institutions and local pattern-sewing courses. Also, the factory of Sumerbank, founded in 1933, made contribution to the establishment of a unique clothing culture with the national production of fabrics reflecting the national incentive policies that would promote the economic life. During the same period, dresses manufactured by the non-Muslim tailors, neighbourhood tailors and the dresses produced by Republican women as a part of domestic production also contributed to the construction of national clothing culture which seemed to be homogenous but varied in some points. The main objective of this paper is to develop understanding about women's social memory by referring to the clothing objects produced by tailors during Turkish modernization period when garment culture had not been emerged yet.