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 United 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.

CoPA-Online contains over 55,000 scanned images (garments & pattern schematics) from 61,000 commercially produced patterns, dating back to 1847. The database is currently free to use and user accounts are no longer required for access. Please contact copa-group@uri.edu with any comments or questions you may have.