Abstract
This thesis investigates the design, production and consumption of children’s clothes during a key period of cultural and social change in Britain from the 1960s to the 1980s. It takes, as a central case study, Clothkits, a distinctive British childrenswear company which at its peak employed over 400 individuals, had seven shops and an annual turnover of almost ten million pounds. Innovators in the production of craft kits to simplify fashion production in the home, Clothkits also broke new ground in the development of an original palette, print and pattern style. Its hard-wearing, home-produced children’s designs offered participatory forms that drew on women’s pre-existing dressmaking knowledge while adapting to new patterns in their working and family lives.Examining childrenswear, an overlooked area of fashion studies, this thesis argues for its value as a subject that illuminates not only shifting understandings of children and childhood but also practices in the fashion industry, the visual culture of advertising, changes to domestic craft and design production, expectations for women, and intergenerational family relationships.
Using research methods drawn from fashion history as well as visual and material culture, this thesis examines extant garments, catalogues, photographs and other company records from Clothkits and other contemporaneous childrenswear companies. Over 50 original personal testimonies have been generated from Clothkits designers, makers and wearers. These materials are positioned in an interdisciplinary analytical context that draws on social history, material culture studies and histories of childhood, fashion and dress.
The thesis asks what differences small-scale production methods could make in an industry shifting to mass-produced readymade children’s clothes. It examines the emerging contribution of the designer-mother in British fashion and textiles, and it explores the models that family-centred workplace methods offer for sustainable fashion. Through a decolonising lens, it argues that Clothkits were simultaneously part of an English pastoral design legacy and a tradition of extracting from other cultures’ folk traditions. It reveals how the production and promotion of children’s clothes, became part of a globalised fashion worldview that perpetuated exclusions even as it sought to expand its range. Through its investigations, this thesis tests contrasting visions of children’s dress, examining how fashion companies in the period traversed the alternatives of child-centred practices versus fashion-led trends. Ultimately, it argues that the study of children’s clothing can enrich understandings of childhood while offering fresh perspectives on local and global issues of production and consumption, identity and family, design and style.
| Date of Award | Dec 2024 |
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| Original language | English |
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| Supervisor | Annebella Pollen (Supervisor) & Charlotte Nicklas (Supervisor) |