This study examines the manufacturing of tailored men’s garments in the workshops at the Swedish royal court during the reigns of Charles IX and Gustavus Adolphus. The focus of the examination has been on the craft of tailoring and the organization of the court tailors. The study is built on both object-based and archival research. The sources used are the extant royal and livery garments from the Swedish court, produced between 1610 and 1635, and the documents from the royal wardrobe. The latter consist of accounts, warrants and inventories produced during the daily contact between the wardrobe staff and the court tailors. The extant garments, being the material evidence of the prevailing tailoring methods, show choices of materials, construction and tailoring techniques, while the documents show the width of the production to which the garments can be compared.

The study of the craft is concerned with what was produced, which materials were used, how these functioned in the garments, and what technical solutions were in use. The detailed studies have also brought about questions concerning the technical differences between tailors and seamstresses, the rationality with which the workshops were run, how different aspects of tailoring were valued at the time, and how the tailoring performed at the Swedish court corresponded with European work from the same period.

The study argues, seen through the craft, that the tailoring workshops at the Swedish court were run as a well organized and highly efficient business. In this standardized amounts and materials, as well as a uniform craftsmanship were used. The tailors running the workshops usually stayed in royal service for many years. They were responsible for the work produced in their workshops as well as for their staff. The study also suggests that the techniques in practice in the tailoring workshops at the Swedish court were not local but belonged to a western European tradition of the craft. Within this frame was a group of established technical solutions that appear to have been typical for the time.