Consuming Mass Fashion in 1930s England: Design, Manufacture and Retailing for Young Working-Class Women

Description

This book details a significant and largely untold history of the demand for cheap, fashionable clothing for young working-class women. This is an interdisciplinary fashion and business history analysis that investigates the design, manufacture, retailing and consumption of fashion for and by young working-class women in 1930s Britain. It concentrates on new mass developments in the design and manufacture of lightweight day dresses styled for younger women, and on their retailing in the second-hand trade and seconds dealing, street markets, new multiple stores, department stores, independent dress shops and home dressmaking. The book also discusses the specific impact of this new product within the emerging mass manufactured goods mail order catalogue industry in England. These outlets all offered venues of consumption to the young, employed, modern working-class woman, and are analysed in the context of old and new businesses practices. The actuality of the garments worn by these young women is paramount to this research and will be at the forefront of all findings and outcomes.  Acknowledgements Contents About the Author List of Figures 1 Introduction: Premise Time Frame Definition of Terms 1930s Working Class and Locale Young, Modern, Working-Class Women in the 1930s The Definition of Working-Class Dress Affordability Ready-Made, Ready-to-Wear and Lightweight Clothing The Framework and Structure of This Book The Fusing of Business Archives and Object-Based Research: A Developing Approach to Fashion and Dress Histories Conclusion Notes Works Cited 2 Agents of Change Social Place Locality and Locale Shared Community Values and Indicators of Class Poverty Class and Poverty Employment as an Indicator of Class Employment Possibilities Wage Contribution Social Communities of Work Leisure Defining Agents of Change Notes Works Cited 3 What Is Fashion? Communicating Fashion Fashion and Individuality Individuality and Community Identity Peer Group, Social Pressure and Individual Dressing: Fashion in the Eye of the Beholder Dress as a Social Indicator and Social Uniform Conformity Taste Issues of Mass Fashion: Innovators or Emulators? Material Agency Fashion or Style? Notes Works Cited 4 Progressive Production Practices: Developments in Design, Print, Colour Forecasting and Fabric Designing Fashionable Lightweight Ready-Made Dresses Fabric Designs and Textile Prints Floral Frocks, Designers and Frivolity Colour Forecasting Colour in the Wardrobe of a Young Working-Class Woman Rayon: The Fabric Revolution and British Suppliers Artificial Fibres: The Importance of Quality and the Sensory Notes Works Cited 5 New Developments and Technological Change: The Business of Mass Manufacturing Fashion London as a Centre for Mass Fashion Fashion Fluctuations Mass Manufacture or Technological Determinism: Creators of Consumption Technological Determinism: Vertical Integration Versus Vertical Disintegration Small Factory Production Jewish Workshops and Factories Workforce and Gender Change The Small Factory and the Shift to Dressmaking Methods of Production: “Making Through” and Sectionality Technological Driven Change? Wholesale Methods: The Manufacturing Middleman The Specialist Wholesaler, the Fashion Copy House Designers and Levels of Wholesale The Trading System for the Manufacturing Wholesaler of Ready-Made Lightweight Day Dresses and Their Eventual Decline The New Providers of Mass Manufactured Lightweight Day Dresses Multiple Trading: In House Manufacture vs. Direct from Manufacturer C&A. The Self-Sufficient Womenswear Provider C&A: Factory Revolutionaries—Advancement in the Mass Manufacture of Lightweight Day Dresses C&A’s “Style Monotony”, Consumer Demand and Manufacturing Turnover Marks and Spencer and the Direct from Manufacturer Approach The Role of Design and Technology Within Marks and Spencer’s Business Practice N. Corah and Sons the Manufacturer: Marks and Spencer the Customer Notes Works Cited 6 Localities of Fashion Modernity in the 1930s: Practices of Retailing Behind the High Street Unsettling Times Consuming Fashion Money Lenders, Doorstep Credit, Second-Hand Dealers, Seconds Traders and Street Markets Tallyman, Money Lenders and Doorstep Credit Second-Hand Traders, Wardrobe Dealers and Hawkers—the “Curb-Side Couturiers” “Material Literacies” Jumble Sales, Sale of Jumble Seconds Traders of Excess and Faulty Mass Manufactured Garments: Z. Myers & Sons and Mr Meyer Gold Street Markets: Shopping for Young Working-Class Women Touts, Schleppers and Guinea Gowns The Downfall of Berwick Street Cross Class Communication and Social Commentary Mail Order: Acquisition of Goods and Retailing Methods Mail Order and the Young Working-Class Woman Pricing Structure and Marketing: Littlewoods Rayon Day Dresses Littlewoods Marketing Method for One Rayon Day Dress Competition Between Mail Order and the High Street Notes Works Cited 7 Localities of Fashion Modernity in the 1930s: Practices of Retailing on the High Street Multiple and Chain Shops C&A Modes and the British High Street: Affordable Fashion for All? Missed Opportunities Marks and Spencer: Value and Quality Retailing Fashion, Value and Quality Marketing Methods of Lightweight Day Dresses Department Stores: The Working-Class Female Consumer and Class Fragmentation Low-End Madam Shops: The Hodson Shop, Ready-Made Clothing Wholesalers and the Customer. Ready-Made or Home Dressmaking? The Style Oxymoron Home Dressmaking Lightweight Day Dresses as a Tool for Modern Self-Presentation The Cost of Home Dressmaking and Its Decline Home Dressmaking Assumptions and Fashionability Notes Works Cited 8 Findings and Conclusion Dispelling the Tropes Future Possibilities? Notes Works Cited Index