Competitiveness in the clothing industry: The economics of fashion in UK womenswear, 1880–1950

Abstract

Most recent prescriptions for firm development in the garment industry have focused on methods of reducing labour costs, with less emphasis placed on targeting high margin niches. This paper examines how the early ready‐made womenswear industry in the UK moved from a wage‐cost containment strategy before the First World War to exploiting fashion‐sensitive demand in the inter‐war period. The economics of fashion‐sensitive demand meant that the most efficient structure for the industry was to have many small producers, specialised in sub‐processes, and all closely located. However, contemporaries failed to understand the efficiency properties of the ‘industrial district’ type of local economy which emerged in London's East End in the first half of this century, a failure which eventually contributed to the dispersion of industrial activities and to the eventual decline of the industry.

Citation

Godley, A. (1998), "Competitiveness in the clothing industry: The economics of fashion in UK womenswear, 1880–1950", Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management, Vol. 2 No. 2, pp. 125-136. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb022522