| PROGRAMME
MC201 12.30
- 13.30 Welcome and lunch
MC418 13.30
- 14.00 Sonia Ashmore, London College of Fashion
From Mantle Makers to Jean
Machines: shopping in London’s West End, 1950 - 1979
Abstract
MC418 14.00
- 14.30 Dilwyn Porter, De Montfort University
‘The rat at the throat of
honest dealers’: unfair competition in sports goods retailing in the inter-war
period
Abstract
MC418
14.30
- 15.15 Coffee
MC418 15.15
- 15.45 Tomoko Tamari, Nottingham Trent University
Department Store, Cinema and
Modern Consumer: Woman’s dream world and new Japanese woman, MOGA (Modern
Girl)
Abstract
MC418 15.45
- 16.15 Bronwen Edwards, Royal Holloway, University of London
The shopping street as parade
route: consumption, ceremony and celebration in London’s West End
Abstract
ABSTRACTS
Sonia
Ashmore, London College of Fashion
From
Mantle Makers to Jean Machines: shopping in London’s West End, 1950 - 1979
E-mail: s.ashmore@fashion.arts.ac.uk
This paper will examine changes
in the retail composition of the principal shopping streets in London’s
West End in 1950 and 1979. This was a period which saw the rise of youth
oriented fashion and new ‘boutiques’ in which to sell it. Using street
directories as a principal source, I will note changes in individual shops
in the locality during the period and chart the evolution of retail fashion
outlets, the noticeable growth of ancillary services such as employment
and travel agencies and changes in catering provision for shoppers. This
brief paper will consider whether these changes indicated a new pattern
of work, consumption and leisure in one location and the extent to which
shopping itself was becoming a form of entertainment.
This research is part of a research
project entitled, Shopping Routes: Networks of Fashion Consumption in London’s
West End 1945-1979, based at the London College of Fashion, Royal Holloway
College University of London and the Victoria & Albert Museum.
It is funded by the ESRC/AHRB
‘Cultures of Consumption’ programme.
Bronwen
Edwards, Royal Holloway, University of London.
The
shopping street as parade route: consumption, ceremony and celebration
in London’s West End
E-mail: Bronwen.Edwards@rhul.ac.uk
This paper considers the significance
of the West End in national ceremony by looking at the role of its streets
and shops in major parades and celebrations. The central focus is the coronation
of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953, although connections are also made to a
longer history of state and popular pageantry within the West End, including
the lighting of Christmas illuminations in Oxford and Regent Streets, victory
parades and protest marches. The paper will consider how shops participated
in the coronation through the decoration of façades, the use of
window displays and the hosting of special events. It examines the ways
in which the coronation was used in advertising to promote patriotic consumption,
and to increase the visibility and standing of particular stores. But it
also argues that such events pointed to the complex role of shopping streets
within national life, and to the existence of a symbiotic relationship
between commercial culture and national pageantry.
The research is forms part of
the Shopping Routes project based at the London College of Fashion, Royal
Holloway, and the V&A Museum, sponsored by the ESRC and AHRB in the
Cultures of Consumption programme.
Dilwyn
Porter, De Montfort University
‘The
rat at the throat of honest dealers’: unfair competition in sports goods
retailing in the inter-war period
E-mail: Dilwyn.Porter@dmu.ac.uk
Specialist retailers in found
themselves in a highly competitive market as department stores and mail
order catalogues expanded their sales of sports clothing and equipment.
The main difficulty confronting the small sports goods retailer, however,
was competition from various ‘irregular outlets’, with manufacturers selling
direct to clubs, schools, organisers of tournaments, golf and tennis professionals
and many others who were happy to trade in sports goods as a sideline.
These direct sales were often at a discount and were regarded as unfair
competition by the regular branch of the trade.
The intention here is to highlight
both the nature of the problem confronting sports goods retailers and the
ways in which they sought to improve their situation – firstly, by organising
themselves into an effective retail trade association and, secondly, by
negotiating a ‘price protection scheme’ with the manufacturers in 1935.
The reasons for the rapid breakdown of this agreement and the continuing
difficulties experienced by sports goods retailers will also be considered.
Tomoko
Tamari, Nottingham Trent University
Department
Store, Cinema and Modern Consumer: Woman’s dream world and new Japanese
woman, MOGA (Modern Girl)
E-mail: tomotama@bd6.so-net.ne.jp
It can be argued that new consumer
spaces such as department stores should be regarded as not only new aestheticized
spaces of consumption but also as nascent women’s public sphere.
Cinema also provided new aestheticized spaces, information about the new
way of life, social experiences and incorporated the dream setting along
with actual and auxiliary rehearsal spaces as well as new women’s leisure
and entertainment places. Both department stores and cinemas along
with their related publications (brochures, magazines, advertisements,
etc.) advised on how to become modern consumers. Department stores and
cinemas in Japan in the 1920s facilitated the creation of a new type of
Japanese woman, which was called as Moga, or Modan Garu (modern girl).
A new image of Japanese women as modern women who were not passive, but
active in seeking enjoyment and pleasure in their own urban consumer life
emerged. |
