Advertising Ready-Made Style: The Evidence of the Stationers' Hall Archive

Abstract

The hitherto unpublished archive of Stationers' Hall (1837–1912) is an important resource for the study of the garment industry, offering both quantitative and qualitative information. Over 3,000 documents registered by ready-made clothing manufacturers, retailers and advertising agents attest to the size of the clothing industry at this date. They give evidence of ready-to-wear clothing production throughout Britain and for both men and women. The prominence of women's ready-to wear in the archive is notable, since this has been thought to be a phenomenon of the 1920s. Most of the documents in the Copy 1 archive are visual, and offer qualitative information about the importance of fashion in ready-to-wear clothing. Illustrated flyers from low-priced retailers show their willingness to invest in advertising. The images in the documents are often from commercial printers who interpreted leading trends for a variety of retailers. The evidence for manufacturing and for retailing practices in this archive has important implications for our understanding of the history of the ready-made clothing industry in Britain.