Welcome to CoPA

Commercial patterns are full-scale tissue paper clothing patterns used by the home-sewer to create garments and accessories issued in the States as early as 1854. Originally full-scale patterns were included as supplements in fashion periodicals such as Frank Leslie's Illustrated Magazine and sold through by mail order.

Commercial patterns are designed to be a disposable tool of the garment creation process, which makes them difficult to preserve. The CoPA project electronically captures and records commercial pattern data in order to preserve these scattered and vanishing records of European and American culture. The Commercial Pattern Archive is an official project of Save America's Treasures. Read More

CoPA-Online contains over 55,000 scanned images (garments & pattern schematics) from 61,000 commercially produced patterns, dating back to 1847. User accounts are no longer needed to search the database. Please contact  copa@etal.uri.edu  with any comments or questions you may have.

Scroll on the image to know Pattern Name and Year