The Etsy blog has a really interesting post about the technological, business, and social changes that turned clothing into an easily disposable commodity.
In the early 1900s, the sewing machine had only been around a half a century and the production quality and fit coming off the assembly lines needed some polishing. Decent menswear could be bought off the rack, and men were slowly warming up to ready-made duds. But for women there was a deep divide between high-end European fashions acquired by the wealthy and the flimsy, flashy, of-the-moment items available to everyone else. According to Jan Whitaker's book Service and Style, a history of department stores, a ready-made knockoff of a French "lingerie style" dress started at $25 ($621.50 in today's dollars) at Marshall Field's in 1902. It was more feasible for the average girl to buy a ready-made women's suit, which started at $7.95 ($190) or, better yet, the quintessential shirtwaist, which sold for just 39 cents ($9.34) at the turn-of-the-century. The fashion-hound of modest means was better off making her own dresses or ordering them from the local dressmaker.
