Early Upholsterers - Did you know?

Textiles did not come into use of furniture coverings until the early seventeenth century. Prior to then, the upholsterer, or "upholder," as he was called, was something of an interior designer / master craftsman, who not only installed but also hand-crafted all of the decorative treatments in the home that utilize textiles. 
An exclusively male domain, the job of the early upholsterer was considered extremely prestigious. Upholsterers did not dress in workman's attire but in gentleman's finery. One of the early London guilds, which was granted its coat of arms in 1465, bore the telling name The Worshipful company of Upholders. Even when the onset of the seventeenth century meant that the job of upholsterer expanded to include what's now considered its primary focus., covering furniture, the extreme costliness of textiles meant that their use on furnitures was restricted to royalty or the very rich. Commissioning an upholsterer to cover furnishings carried many of the same connotations then as hiring an interior designer does today, though fewer homeowners could afford the services.

---the book of upholstery by Candace Ord Manroe---