More, more, more
Introduction
Victorian Bournemouth (237) reports that the resort’s new drapery store exemplified developments in the fabric business during the 1890s. The continued growth of this sector made it an important employer in the town. Intense competition led to changes in product categories and customer experiences. The fabric industry also offered increasing employment opportunities for women. In 1898, Plummer, Roddis, Tyrell opened as a superstore, reflecting a broader national trend towards larger retail establishments and new approaches to fabric shopping.
Victorian Bournemouth (237): category trends
Constant growth
Perhaps Bournemouth’s earliest commercial representatives of the textile business consisted of the Garrett siblings, former residents of Salisbury. They had established a drapery shop on Commercial Road by 1849. A half century later, textiles had become one of Bournemouth’s most salient business categories. Approximately 2,500 people worked in it, employed by over 200 businesses. Only lodging houses accounted for a larger share of the economy, albeit a far greater one. By now, however, the category had expanded far beyond drapery into tailoring, outfitters, dressmakers, and a cluster of hosiers, hatters, glovers, and mantle makers. During the 1890s, however, drapery seemed to have experienced better growth. Drapers accounted for one in five textile businesses in 1871, but one in three by the end of the century. The last quarter of the century had witnessed considerable expansion within Bournemouth’s surrounding settlements. By 1901, these areas contained more textile workers and firms than the original town.
‘Drapers’ Avenue’
Mate’s Directory for 1894 listed 33 drapery businesses for Bournemouth and its suburbs. The equal allocation between the two areas supports the geographic distribution found in other directories and the census. Of these, four had their location on Commercial Road, but shoppers extending their trip to Old Christchurch Road would have had a choice of ten further drapers. Furthermore, a few consisted of several buildings, including the Tyrrell business, already large before the merger. The directory also listed around twenty other textile businesses located on Old Christchurch Road. These included gentlemen’s outfitters, tailors, hatters, hosiers, and dressmakers. Thus, a ‘drapers’ avenue’ stretched across both sides of the valley. The two streets would have presented to shoppers a variegated display of colours, fabrics, and other textile products. This concentration of businesses, jostling and competing with one another, illustrated the contemporary consumer interest in personal display and self-presentation.
Opportunities for women
As the drapery stores increased in size and stature, they employed greater numbers of shop assistants. Both men and women numbered amongst such workers, but most consisted of the latter. Thus, consumers’ increasing appetite for the growing types of fabric provided paid employment for women, for whom service provided the main employment opportunity. The directories and census, however, also indicate that female entrepreneurs began to prosper within this business category. Between 1881 and 1891, the number of women operating as dressmakers doubled to over 600. During the next decade, however, this number fell. In contrast, the number of women described as ‘tailoress’ doubled. This may indicate that women found ways to tailor garments other than dresses. The number of women working as milliners, either in employment or as employers, also continued to rise during this period. Thus, the growth in commercial fabrics offered multiple opportunities for women.
Victorian Bournemouth (237): fabric business
Increased competition
The directories indicate that Bournemouth’s fabric business became very competitive. Several firms incorporated other product categories besides drapery. Census descriptions indicate that several firms sold both fabric and finished garments, tailored or off-the-peg. Intense competition from stores selling fabric may have caused these proprietors to see added-value items as a way to protect profits. Selling both fabric and the garment made from it also provided convenience to the consumer. In addition to drapers and tailors, directories began listing more specialised activities during the 1890s. These included costumiers, clothiers, outfitters, hosiers, and ladies’ tailors. The growth in these categories may indicate how specialisation offered wider business opportunities within the all-embracing mantle of fabric shops. Because so many drapery shops lined Commercial and Old Christchurch Roads, they would have created an attraction for the fabric category overall. Specialists could find opportunities in the general demand thus delivered.
Shopping palace
An “… important business development in Bournemouth”, Plummer, Roddis, Tyrrell dazzled shoppers with their innovative drapery shopping format during 1898. It had a defined mission: ‘to introduce everything which is new and elegant, and otherwise attractive … [they] keep well to the front with the every-varying fashions and novelties of the times’. The large, well-lighted interior housed several departments. These included fancy items, gloves and hosiery, heavy household linens, mourning goods, mantles, millinery, art needlework, and juvenile clothes. Some items lay in glass showcases, while ‘… the glass columns here and elsewhere impart an artistic and brilliant finish to the other handsome fittings’. In addition to ‘commodious workrooms’, the shop’s top floor featured a kitchen and dining room. Thus, the extended and renovated premises represented a blazing palace, stuffed with almost countless types and colours of fabrics. A ‘little army of assistants always in readiness’ guided the sales process.
Constant innovation
Parts of the description contained oblique references to the context in which customers wore their purchases. The glove and hosiery department also contained ties for both men and women. ‘ … these are now so largely in vogue for tennis, bicycling, boating, and other summer pastimes that they form an interesting item in the fashionable world of today’. This illustrates how, as participation in sports widened, it presented substantial new opportunities for Plummer, Roddis, Tyrrell as well as other drapers. Barnes, for example, stocked a ‘new cycling skirt’ which had both a patent and a name (Vaebas). The same shop also advertised ‘making a speciality of Election Colours, ties, handkerchiefs, rosettes, etc’. These examples show how much innovation the fabric industry could apply, by presenting items to suit almost every specific human form of behaviour. The wide opportunities to browse suggest that fabrics had become an impulse business.
Takeaway
Victorian Bournemouth (237) has found that the fabric’s business bustled its way into an important component within the local economy. The category, employing always more people, spread into the suburbs. It drew more women into the economy. Competition introduced new fabrics, induced specialisation amongst retailers, and changed consumers’ shopping experience. The opening of Plummer, Roddis, Tyrrell summarised the category’s changes under one roof in spring, 1898.
References
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