The mass marketing of clothing from the late nineteenth century onwards arguably facilitated the construction of homosexual and heterosexual identities those self-defining as homosexual or lesbian could mark that identification with clothing that enabled mutual recognition and encounters. The advent of the suit for example, in the nineteenth century, both marked and helped to create a change in the definition of masculinity, and women’s struggle for the right to wear trousers was a key element in the early feminist movement. All of these are not only generally highly feminized forms of labor, but the products themselves have been systematically used to construct gender. 1 It is no accident that historians of gender and sexuality have been drawn to spinning, weaving, embroidery, knitting, quilting, and tailoring. Any effort to discuss this expansive literature in one brief review essay would frustrate both the author and the reader I focus here, therefore, on the particularly extensive gendered history of textiles. On shoplifting: Whitlo (.)ġ Many forms of material culture – furniture, jewelry, shoes, clothing, tableware, toys, kitchen equipment, bicycles and radios – have drawn the eye of historians of gender and sexuality. 2 The best text on textiles and fetishism is Tisseron-Papetti & Tisseron 1987.1 For a succinct argument for the importance of textiles see: Burns 2004a.