Women Selling Clothes, Artistic Dress Ateliers
The surviving evidence reveals that not only were the majority of Artistic Dresses designed by women, but also that the majority of Artistic Dress businesses were founded and run by women. Of the nineteen known Artistic Dress business proprietors mentioned in Reform Dress magazines, city archives, fine- and applied-arts magazines, only two were men. 1
Women were most likely drawn to the Artistic Dress business because it provided a way of earning income and working creatively without sacrificing social acceptability. As noted in “Gender and the Gaze”, the ideal fin-de-siècle woman was the angel of the house. Running a business broke from that ideal in two ways. It indicated that a woman sought independence, including financial independence, and that she left women’s realm, the domestic sphere, to operate in the masculine public sphere. Because an interest in dress was considered naturally feminine, the Artistic Dress Atelier proprietor could temper her un-feminine pursuit of economic independence and public activity with her very feminine interest in clothing. Furthermore, dressmaking, like embroidery had long been an acceptable activity for women. Not only did women often make their own garments at home, but there was a secure history of female dressmakers.
In the nineteenth century, the profession of dressmaking was by no means considered an ideal undertaking. Dressmakers were typically asked to execute designs by male designers, and the profession was one that involved a lot of work, little pay, and no creative pleasure. Artistic Dress was an alternative to this norm. A 1906 Neue Frauenzeitung article advised women to enter the Artistic Dress-making profession because “this profession will no longer be merely effort and work, but
also joyful artistic creation.” 2
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1 Perhaps the best known is Alfred Mohrbutter. Mohrbutter’s was a tireless promoter of Artistic Dress, perhaps be
cause he reaped financial benefits from its success. By 1901, he had established a relationship with the fashion house Gerson and sold his work via the larger business. His 1903 book, Das Kleid der Frau, basically functions as a catalog for this dress business. More than half the photographs in the book are of his designs, as are all the hand-drawn illustrations. Perhaps most commercially useful are the book’s color plates, which illustrate thirty-two fabric combinations available through Mohrbutter. These would have been particularly useful for long-distance customers. Alfred Mohrbutter, Das Kleid der Frau (Darmstadt: Alexander Koch, 1903), 73-80. 2 “Für die Frauen aber, die die Schneiderei als Beruf erwählen, soll dieser Beruf nicht mehr Mühe und Arbeit allein, sondern freudevolles, künstlerisches Schaffen bedeuten.” “Die Schneiderei als Kunsthandwerk,” Die Neue Frauenzeitung. Mitteilungen des Vereins zur Verbesserung der Frauenkleidung 2, no. 2 (April 1906): 1.