New Products, New Sellers? Changes in the Dutch Textile Trades, c. 1650-1750

From the late seventeenth century onwards, the north-west European textile trades blossomed as part of larger transformations in consumption, generally referred to as the ‘Consumer Revolution’.1 Not only did the types of textiles for sale expand greatly as a result of new product and process innovations and the influx of products from new colonies in the East Indies, due to faster circulation of products and cheaper prices the importance of fashion gained in relevance for ever larger groups of people.2 The growing demand for textiles also generated an increase in business opportunities. Although some studies have indeed shown that the number of textiles dealers grew during the so-called ‘Consumer Revolution’, we still know remarkably little about their identities.3 This chapter asks what new business opportunities arose from the expansion of the supply and the demand in textiles, and who precisely benefited from these opportunities. It will focus on the Dutch Republic, the country that, alongside England, is generally assumed to have experienced these changes earliest and most profoundly. Various studies have suggested that the rise of a consumer society and the accompanying growth of the retail sector took place exceptionally early in the northern Netherlands; in some areas, most notably the province of Holland, already around 1670.4 However, while steadily more information is uncovered on Dutch early modern retail transformations, we still lack a thorough understanding of when exactly these changes took place, at what speed and scale, and how they precisely impacted on the character of the retail sector.5 Based on a variety of records such as tax registers, municipal archives and retail guilds’ financial administrations from a selection of Dutch towns, this chapter investigates how the retail trade in textiles and associated products such as accessories and clothing changed over time, and who were the new sellers of these products.