In 1755, in his now famous dictionary, Samuel Johnson described a tailor simply as ‘one whose business is to make clothes’. The term usually meant someone who made clothes for men, as opposed to a dressmaker, but some tailors did make women’s clothing as well – such as riding and walking clothing, more practical items as opposed to finery. The term originally denoted someone who cut clothes – a cutter – but it developed to mean someone, usually a man, who sewed up the clothes that had been cut and shaped by the cutter. Tailors were sometimes seen as effeminate or henpecked individuals, because sewing was traditionally seen as a female activity, with there being a range of disparaging nicknames for those in the trade. However, although tailors could be described in mocking terms – in Northward Hoe (1607), Thomas Dekker and John Webster wrote that ‘they say three tailors go to the making up of a man’ – they were highly skilled individuals.