1952

1957

 

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

  

In the fifties, as television became universally available, the corsetry industry began to realise the power of mass marketing, and to put it to good use. In 1952 the British industry introduced National Corset Week, an advertising campaign which became an annual fixture.

Elizabeth Ewing, in Dress and Undress, wrote (speaking about England):

"So prestigious was the corset that in the 1950s the whole nation was alerted to it by the event called National Corset Week. It sounds incredible now, but there was about this time a spate of such weeks, devoted to promoting sales of various items of apparel, including gloves and millinery. It was claimed there were about 1000 shop window displays of corsets in shops and stores all over the country, during the first National Corset Week of 1952."

"There's more to this beauty than you can see with your eyes"

Window display: Jay's of Regent Street, 1952

In Feb 1952 the UK trade magazine "FASHIONS and FABRICS" carried four articles on the inaugural National Corset Week. This is the first article. The other three are in Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4.

 

National corset week stimulates promotions

EVERY CORSET RETAILER SHOULD TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE SPECIAL INTEREST WHICH WILL BE FOSTERED FROM 17-22 MARCH

 

Functional display of varied corsetry

"A selection of varied corsetry is shown, clearly priced, with showcards illustrating the important selling points."

Plaster models must have been expensive then)

The first National Corset Week, which is being staged by the Corset Guild of Great Britain from March 17 to 22, is arousing interest already enough to guarantee that the event will be one from which every corset retailer can benefit.

The B.B.C. is to devote time to the Week in "Woman's Hour," and the Lux Washability Bureau is issuing a booklet, "The Care of the Corset," which will be distributed to retailers for the information of both their assistants and the public.

Manufacturers are mentioning National Corset Week in their advertisements, and the public relations departments of firms are combining to send out information to the national and provincial press helping to make the public more particularly corsetry-conscious during this Week.

The majority of large department stores have a regular corsetry window, but many provincial shops and stores have insufficient window space. This National Corset Week is an attempt to co-ordinate everybody's displays and advertisements to give an extra emphasis to corsetry.

A first-class window is obviously an eye-catcher for the public, and an indication that something more important than usual is taking place in the corsetry department. The Corset Guild are issuing window "stickers" in turquoise and white ; being 5½x22½ in, they are not too obtrusive to upset a well-balanced window, but they are enough to show that the individual shop or store is doing something to promote an extra interest in corsets and brassieres.

Window displays are not enough. They may bring the customer into the store, but something must sustain her interest until she reaches the corsetry department. Maybe some of the fashion windows can show appropriate corsetry, and the idea be carried through into the departments, so that any customer buying fashion merchandise will be tempted to buy an extra foundation garment to make her first purchase perfect. This is a week when the public will be making purchases for the Easter holiday, probably suits and blouses, and surely there can be some co-ordination here. A customer must be persuaded that a new corset or brassiere can do as much for her appearance as a new hat. Any fashion parades in the store can be preceded by corsetry suitable for the clothes shown.

Though brand-name displays may be the usual way of showing corsetry, this is the week for more original thinking. Why not promote on figure types, on coloured corsetry, on price groups, particularly aiming at the young customer or Pay Packet Girl who is the most likely customer for a new Easter outfit?

Elizabeth Ewing continued:

"In 1957 there was an impressive inaugural function for the event at a London hotel, followed by a Forum at which trade experts answered questions from the press on problems of figures and corsetry. Allison Adburgham recorded it in Punch on the sixth of March 1957, with her characteristic gentle stringency: ‘The contemporary corset has to be seen to be believed, and that it shall be seen is the earnest intention of the promoters of National Corsetry Week, which is now in full swing. This fascinating fixture includes shop window displays in every town, and it is unlikely that those will be passed by with averted eyes. For the art and craft of corsetry has reached its finest flowering in the new materials of today, and there is, in addition, the fresh interest in the feminine silhouette invoked by Christian Diors A-line -- the most high significant cipher since the S-curve of the Edwardian Gaiety Girl. Even the professionally unconcerned must be aware that what goes on underneath the A-line is of fundamental importance’. It was -- the National Corset Weeks were a notable success both in the displays that proclaimed them and the rising corset sales that accrued."

[it is interesting to note the title -- National Corset Week -- despite the fact that the garments on display would overwhelmingly have been girdles. Clearly the advertisers did not feel that Corset carried any negative connotations.]

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

 

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