Cloth Workers Basics

 CLOTH WORKERS

- produce textiles for various uses and make clothing

- are separate from Leather Workers, who are their own caste

- like Merchants, Cloth Workers have numerous subcastes:

"The Carders and Dyers, incidentally, are subcastes separate from the Weavers. All are subcastes of the Rug Makers, which itself, interestingly, perhaps surprisingly, is accounted generally as a subcaste of the Cloth Workers. Rug Makers themselves, however usually regard themselves in their various subcastes, as being independent of the Cloth Workers. A rug maker would not care to be confused with a maker of kaftans, turbans, or djellabas." 

Tribesmen of Gor, pages 49-50

- the caste of Bleachers is not explicitly said to be a subcaste of Cloth Workers, but that would make sense

"...its libraries, its records and files; its cubicles for Smiths, Bakers, Cosmeticians, Bleachers, Dyers, Weavers, and Leather Workers..." Assassin of Gor, page 111

- some Cloth Workers own shops

I had taken a large. room on the ground floor, behind a cloth-worker's shop, just off the Street of Tapestries. 

(Explorers of Gor)

- some Cloth Workers are considered to be "high", not as in being an actual high caste, but as in having an esteemed status within their own caste; they are the ones who make bespoke clothing for wealthy customers, or, more specifically, "masters of the foremost garment houses"

- high cloth workers would be in the position to affect and create fashion trends

" (...) I am educated and refined. I have exquisite taste. I am accustomed to the finest silks, the most expensive materials. I have my gowns, my robes, even my veils, especially made for me by high cloth workers!"

"I am not a high cloth worker," I said, "but I did make it especially for you."

Players of Gor, page 215

How and when fashions changed, and why they changed, was not clear. Doubtless there were setters of trends, say, highly placed officials, wealthy Merchants, Actors, Singers, and Poets, certain women of noble family

and high caste, and such, but why should one option rather than another succeed in being adopted, however transiently? Perhaps the higher, better fixed, more established or influential members of the Cloth Workers had something to do with it, with hints, with words dropped now and then, with boulevard posters, with some judiciously distributed free garmenture, here and there, and so on. Doubtless each time a fashion changed at least the high Cloth Workers, masters of the foremost garment houses, would sell more garmenture, at least to the fashion conscious, to those who were concerned to keep up with the times, to those who feared to be pitied or ridiculed for being out of style, and such.

Conspirators of Gor, ebook edition

- going by the general understanding of Rug Makers as a subcaste of Cloth Workers, the "family tree" of these castes would go as follows (unattested suggestions in brackets):

                             Cloth Workers

                              |                  |                      

   subcaste: Rug Makers      (subcaste: Tailors? "high cloth workers") 

                     | 

    subcastes: Carders, Dyers, (possibly Bleachers), Weavers