Introduction

The retail price of garments was kept affordable by pushing down labour costs, separating out the skilled work of designing, cutting and fitting from the semi-skilled work of sewing. Large-scale manufacturers like Hyams recruited their labour force from the growing pool of urban workers who lacked the training or the capital to set up independently, and who lacked the collective organizations to bargain for higher wages. Changes in the clothing industry also had an effect on consumers; as clothing became more affordable, and more widely distributed, the middle classes sought to distinguish themselves from the newly fashionable masses. The complexity of the relationship between fiction and reportage can be seen in some of the factual accounts. The 1906 Exhibition itself also showed a debt to fictional, and especially theatrical, precedents, as was recognised at the time by some of its critics such as R. B. Suthers.