Talk:Cloth merchant

Clothier/cloth merchant

While this article is merely a stub, it seems to me that it is already confusing several different occupations. In my historical experience, a clothier was some one who organised the production and sale of cloth, that is buying wool, having it spun, then woven, then fulled, and perhaps also sheard and other finishing processes. Finally he sold finished or semi-finished cloth to drapers or other cloth merchants. This is not my subject, and it would be much better of some one whose subject it is could improve this article. I note that there is a disambiguation page for clothier, which also directs one to tailor. My experience is that tailor was a quite separate occupation in the early modern period, but I am less sure about more recent usage. Peterkingiron 21:01, 21 August 2006 (UTC)