A Price for Fashion: A Young Working-Class Woman’s Wardrobe in 1930s London

This interdisciplinary material culture analysis, will investigate the design, manufacture, retailing and consumption of fashion for a young working-class woman in England in the 1930s. The young women this article will discuss are aged between fourteen and twenty-five, usually the age between leaving school, working and getting married in London’s working-class East End the period 1930-1938. Exploration a young working-class woman’s fashion interests and purchasing power will probe the influence of issues such as modernity, peer group cohesion, leisure and related dress, along with the reactions of parents and peers. As historian Selina Todd notes, ‘as rising numbers of young women worked in larger factories, shops and offices, so workplaces increasingly became a venue for friendship and for disseminating information on fashion and appearance.’1 In the context of work, income, family and gender expectations, this article will thus explore the life, work and aspirations of a young working-class woman in the 1930s through the contents of her wardrobe.