Trim & Trimming

Applied Ornament, by Hand and by Machine

Trim is ornament that is applied to a garment or furnishing rather than woven into its main fabric or built into its cut. A plain dress, curtain or chair becomes a trimmed one when braid is stitched along an edge, ribbon is applied to a bodice, ruffles are added to a hem, or tassels finish a cushion. Because the base garment can stay comparatively simple, trim adds colour, texture and pattern exactly where the eye lands: at necklines, cuffs, hems, seams and edges. It can outline a shape, hide a join, or turn a standard garment into a special-occasion piece without changing its pattern.

Before the Industrial Revolution, all trim was made and applied by hand. Every length of braid, fringe or passementerie represented hours of skilled work, repeated for each garment. Heavily trimmed furnishings and garments were therefore expensive and high-status, not simply for their materials but because dense handwork could not be produced cheaply.

Machine production changed that calculation completely. Machine-woven trims and sewing machines put dense trimmings within the reach of even modest dressmakers and home sewers. Braids, edgings and fringes could be bought by length, in repeatable patterns, and stitched on quickly. An abundance of trimming is a characteristic of mid-Victorian fashion for exactly this reason: what had been a luxury of the hand-made became a widely available fashion effect, and dresses and interiors of the period layered applied ornament generously. Today most trimmings are commercially manufactured, sold for fashion sewing, home sewing and crafts, and for home furnishings, where makers such as Scalamandre are known for elaborate furnishing trim and Wrights is a leading manufacturer for home sewing and crafts.

Types of Trim and How Fashion Changed Its Meaning

The family of trims is large because almost any applied decorative material qualifies. Flat and narrow forms include bias tape, braid, ribbon, rick-rack and piping, used to edge, outline and contrast. Surface and motif forms include embroidery worked by hand or machine, lace edgings and insertions, gimp and the elaborate braided and corded work grouped as passementerie. Three-dimensional and finishing forms include buttons used decoratively, ruffles or frills, and tassels. Each type behaves differently: piping defines a seam, a ruffle adds movement and volume, and a tassel adds weight at a point, so choosing trim is a design decision about line and texture, not only decoration.

Fashion's judgement of trim has reversed more than once. As a predictable reaction to Victorian abundance, high fashion came to emphasise exquisiteness of cut and construction over denseness of trimming. When anyone could buy dense trim, density stopped signalling quality, and by the 1930s applied trim had become a signifier of mass-produced clothing. Couture skill moved inside the garment, into cutting, fit and finish.

Trim nevertheless survived at the highest level when it was used with discipline. The iconic braid and gold button trim of the Chanel suit are a notable survival of trim in high fashion. There the braid does not cover the suit; it edges it, tracing the jacket's openings and pockets in a controlled line, and the buttons complete a recognisable uniform-like finish. The lesson of that example generalises well. Trim works best when its placement, scale and amount serve the garment's design, whether the result is a lavishly decorated Victorian dress, a braid-edged tailored suit, or a simple home-sewn garment finished with a single ribbon, edging or row of rick-rack.