ABSTRACT
This chapter explores display from 1900 to 1940 and shows that the evolution of window advertising transcended the circumscribed world of the department store and its autocratic founder-owners and incorporated a much wider range of interest groups that were keen to take display in new directions. It deals with the Edwardian and the interwar periods, each of which was distinguished by its own characteristics, and discusses a consideration of established practices surrounding the ‘selling’ or ‘stocky’ window adopted by English drapers and department stores in the early 1900s. The chapter examines the ways in which this division became consolidated within continuing debates between the wars. It considers the views of John Spedan Lewis. Lewis became the senior partner of two major West End stores: John Lewis of Oxford Street and Peter Jones of Sloane Square. The chapter concludes by considering the case for innovation from the perspective of display workers.
