Sewing machines were in general use from the middle of the 1850s in the UK (slightly earlier in the USA and Germany) with a patent ‘sewing machine war’ throughout the 1850s. Originally founded by William Jones and Thomas Chadwick in 1860, the Jones Sewing Machine Company had a huge factory in Guide Bridge near Manchester from 1869. The sewing machine revolutionised both shoemaking and dressmaking/tailoring industries, but not for the better, as wages decreased considerably. In the 1860s, 15,000 girls were employed by London dressmakers, working in appalling conditions for ten hours at a time and often eating and sleeping in the workrooms.
The Textiles Society www.textilesociety.org.uk/textile-links/museums.php has links to costume museums, organisations and online resources such as the London Sewing Machine Museum, the Embroiderer’s Guild and the Crafts Study Centre.
My grandmother, like every woman of her generation, never went out without hat and gloves. Photos prior to the 1950s show everyone wearing a hat, be it cloth cap, Homburg, bowler, top hat or stylish millinery confection. In 1571, to promote the English wool trade, a law decreed that all non-noble Englishmen should wear wool caps, nicknamed ‘statute caps’, on Sundays and holidays. Lords and ladies were exempt. Hats were one of the few items during the Second World War which were not rationed.
Hats, like shoes, did not merely protect people against the elements, but were also safety wear (an equestrian sports a sunhat in the Elgin Marbles), a social or fashion statement or statement of power (crowns, flamboyant headdresses and so on). After the Second World War, the rise in popularity and convenience of the ‘runabout’, its decreasing cost (in 1929 a Crossley car cost, at £495, about the same as a suburban semi in Manchester) together with the introduction of radiators in the family car (during the 1960s) ensured the day of the hat was over.