Consuming Mass Fashion in 1930s England

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. 

Dr Cheryl Roberts is Senior Lecturer at Chelsea, Camberwell and Wimbledon (CCW), University of Arts London (UAL), UK. She also teaches on the Royal College of Art/V&A Museum MA History of Design Programme and is currently Visiting Research Fellow in the School of Humanities at the University of Brighton, UK. Her research is rooted in the material culture of objects—particularly the consumption of dress and textiles—and how they acquire meaning through their relationship with specific acts in historical and cultural contexts.