John What Simmons Ready Made Suit

This year at Roxbury Latin how many of you have worn a suit that you bought after going to a store and merely trying it on and subsequently purchasing it because you fit into a certain range of measurements. This in 1820 would have been a novel concept, for the fine clothing business was exclusively reserved for the upper classes of Boston society. This was due to large amounts of work and skill that went into making a custom suit. The process consisted of: basic measurement taking, the original cutting and stitching, the first fitting and then the final adjustments before the suit would finally be sold to the customer. This process lowered the general production of suits and vicariously made the costs extremely high. During this time John …show more content…
The upper class dressed in elegant tailor made suits of fine materials while the lower and middle classes dressed in simple clothes made out of coarse fabric. On this observation Simmons acted with an idea to create a mass producible type of high class clothing, thus was born the concept of the Ready Made Suit. This idea took into account the general measurements of the Boston population and he grouped their waist circumference, arm thickness, height and leg length into four categories. Small, Medium, Large and Extra Large. This allowed the female seamstresses to work on mass producing these suits with these exact dimensions, meaning the cost of one of these suits was drastically lower. This brought about a revolution of culture and fashion in Boston and around the United States as travelling salesmen would travel to the deep south and out west in order to sell these products. What also helped spread this product was the customers' new ability to order from afar by means of the post. Opposed to having to come to the shop and get fitted. The low costs also allowed the lower and middle classes to now possess a suit and a newfound sense of