Abstract
The financial crash of the 1930s generated a seismic wave of poverty from the United States to Britain fuelling the existing severe economic problems experienced by working-class families and triggered unfamiliar hardship for the wealthier classes. Many, for a time, were dependent on the provision of emergency credit and had little, or no, disposable income. At worst families were dependent on borrowing money to cover essential weekly costs and had been living in real poverty (Jerry White 1986, p. 212). Young women living in these conditions may consequently have been more cautious about spending their precious earnings and may well have chosen to purchase their clothing through cheapest means. Yet, for many young employed working-class women the desire for fashionable clothing went beyond monetary downfalls. London’s East End with its cacophony of manufacturers, tailors, dressmakers, embroiderers and traders was the long-established epicentre for street trading, second-hand dealing and markets. This chapter explains how these arenas of consumption offer a helpful focus not only into accessing and negotiating fashion but also as a cross-class communicator for women in the 1930s.
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Roberts, C. (2022). Localities of Fashion Modernity in the 1930s: Practices of Retailing Behind the High Street. In: Consuming Mass Fashion in 1930s England. Palgrave Studies in Fashion and the Body. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94613-5_6
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