The historical development of corporate clothing
Rarely is it written about corporate or work clothes, the clothes that a large part of the population wears. However, its history deserves some attention, since it is inextricably linked with the social problems of the time.
Diana de Marley, carried out an interesting review of corporate clothing and staff uniforms for craftsmen and professionals during the 20th century. He stated that “after World War I, the most professional work clothes were black, as many people were in mourning, however, during the 1920s, gray suits became more common. The battle was between frock coats and top hats versus lounge suits and bowler hats, as people selected their corporate wear.
The short jacket gradually replaced the frock coat, and at the same time the lounge suit became more popular with the working class. They wanted to wear suits, even if they were of poor quality. The short jacket and trousers were the modern version of the hip-length jacket and knee-length trousers that had been worn since the 17th century. The lounge suit did not have the drawbacks of long frock coats, so it was adopted in large numbers by workers to such an extent that black lounge suits were accepted as socialist suits, worn by some in the 1950s.
When Gordon Selfridge opened his London shop in 1909, the male staff had to wear black suits and the women had to wear high-necked black dresses. After the 1920s War, girls were allowed to wear white blouses, black cardigans, and black skirts. The men still had black suits. This was typical of all corporate uniforms for large merchandise retailers at the time.
Many uniforms followed the fashion. The girls who worked for Heinz wore long blue striped dresses with gigot sleeves, white aprons, and large white caps to cover their hair. During the 1920s, the uniforms of food factory personnel changed to shorter skirts and lower waists, and in the 1930s, the waists went up and the hems dropped as part of the return to a more feminine look. He made companies spend big, but workers didn’t like looking old-fashioned when movies made them more aware of changing fashions.
A large part of the working population worked on the land during the first part of the 20th century. Even in the late 1950s one man in twenty still worked in agriculture, however by the 1980s this had dropped to one in one hundred. Old workers who had stuck to their traditional dress wore heavy corduroy trousers, boots and leather leggings called buskins in Suffolk, and corduroy waistcoats with cloth backs. The old corduroy vests with sleeves were so thick that a jacket was not necessary for work clothes.
The Great Western Railway prided itself on its elegance and appearance, which characterized how many companies expected their workers to embody the corporate image. The GWR rule book of 19333 stated: “when on duty, have a neat appearance and, when provided, wear uniform, number and insignia.”
In industrial cities, “the first sound of the morning was the clogs of the millers down the cobbled street,” wrote Orwell in 1937. The clogs continued in the war, along with the tartan shawl, the knee-length skirt, calf and dark stockings. At the cotton mill, their now traditional aprons continued as the main form of protection for work clothes.”
With the onset of the Industrial Revolution and the shift of labor to the cities, came the gradual development of occupational clothing appropriate to the job at hand.
In recent times, we now see more emphasis on corporate clothing and workwear related to the service sector, where corporate image and brand awareness play a greater role, and the perception of the business by its customers is increasingly increasingly important, reinforcing the need for classic corporate wear.