Regina Lee Blaszczyk is a leading international scholar in the fields of fashion studies and business history, and her recent monograph brings together the strengths of both. Written in Blaszczyk’s trademark crystal-clear prose, Fashionability is one of those rare books that is able to bring big ideas to the table without sacrificing empirical detail and an interesting narrative. The book makes a contribution on four levels: as a microhistory of an important British firm; as a macrohistory of an industry in its larger political context; as a broader analysis of the origins of “fashionability”; and as a self-reflexive consideration of business history and historical method.
Founded in 1837, Abraham Moon and Sons is one of the last remaining vertical woolen mills in Great Britain. Blaszczyk reconstructs the long history of this family-owned Yorkshire mill from its development of domestic and international markets for British tweeds to its success in apparel and furnishings fabrics and accessories in the twenty-first century. As a case study of a firm that reinvented itself as a “heritage-informed, design-led business” to survive in a highly competitive global environment, her book will be of interest to business historians, marketing scholars, and industry professionals (273). With the exquisite detail made possible by vast research in corporate archives and trade literature, it explores the reasons for the firm’s success. Blaszczyk argues that the mill’s longevity was the result of its continued private ownership by generations who were willing to take financial loss and wait out hard times, coupled with an embrace of change and creativity. In the context of a larger world dominated by multinational corporations concerned only with shareholder value, Abraham Moon’s “commitment to design, technology, heritage and customer service” are portrayed as a valuable contemporary asset (284).
Abraham Moon’s history is the history of “family capitalism” (283) as well. The book overviews the British woolen industry, which in the years after World War II employed one hundred eighty thousand across three thousand mills (3). With fascinating detail, it recreates the experience of an array of historical actors and institutions that shaped the industry over time. The rise of multiples and department stores, as well as competition from synthetics, pushed the woolen industry in new directions. Professional organizations and educational institutions facilitated its growth and modernization. And trade shows and exhibitions introduced British manufacturers to marketing and helped them develop international markets.
Following a trend in recent decades within the field of business history, the book pays special attention to the role of the state in the marketplace. A consistent thread in the history of Abraham Moon and the larger woolen industry is the influence of political economy. War emerged as a surprising factor behind the industry’s survival, as huge government orders for wool uniforms and blankets kept the mills running at key moments. Tariffs and trade policies shaped the woolen industry, beginning with the free trade policies of the Victorian era that helped British manufacturers, followed by periods of protectionism that forced tweed mills to compete inefficiently with one another for home and export markets. Foreign protectionism, however, also pushed Abraham Moon and the industry as a whole to adapt. The book thus makes an excellent case for considering the relationship between trade policies, technology, and product innovation. Investment in mill equipment and the development of new fabrics and patterns, for example, were a competitive response to complex protectionist regimes.
The book also operates as a history of the “fashion industrial complex” (8). As a study of the development of the idea of fashionability within a manufacturing sector of the fashion industry, the book breaks with most literature in that field. It explicitly challenges the cultural focus of fashion studies, arguing for further analysis of the business of fashion. But the book also stands as a model of how to bridge culture and economy. “Fashionability” is a widely used term, but its meaning can be quite elusive. In Blaszczyk’s hands, the meaning of the term emerges in the interplay between business, consumers, and the state.
The book draws on the idea of the fashion intermediary, which was introduced in Blaszczyk’s first book, Imagining Consumers: Design and Innovation from Wedgwood to Corning,Footnote 1 and developed in her many publications since. Fashion intermediaries, she demonstrates, contributed to design and manufacture as well as sales, their influence moving through the supply chain in both directions. Their ability to influence fashion was in turn shaped by larger economic trends and political contexts. One such fashion intermediary, revealed in a primary source quoted at length, was a fashion director at the Boston department store Filene’s. His letter to an Irish maker-up about the high price of imported tweeds revealed the influence of tariff policy on his buying decisions, and thus on what was available to consumers (150). Fabric designers are also shown to be key fashion intermediaries as she traces the origins of design-led sales in the industry. By focusing on these ordinary individuals working at different levels and stages of sourcing, design, production, and sales, Blaszczyk is able to pull back the curtain on the fashion process. In doing so, she has produced a volume that will be of interest to fashion studies scholars.
And finally, the book makes a self-conscious effort to use primary sources in a transparent manner as it reconstructs the biographies of the people behind the firm and their roles in the fashion industry. Blaszczyk took a number of opportunities throughout her narrative to reflect on her archival and published materials. Whether it was intentional or not, it served the purpose of modeling to others how one might construct the story of a firm and its industry, perhaps an offering to the field of fashion studies. There was another level to this self-reflexive use of historical material, and that had to do with the firm’s marketing direction in recent decades. One reason for the continued success of Abraham Moon was its use of its own history as a British textile mill. The book traces the textile mill’s creation of a corporate narrative, and its development of heritage branding and marketing. Stories and storytelling, she suggests, converted “history into heritage” and were an important marketing tool (236). Ironically, she notes, the firm’s “Britishness” and local identity were used to enhance the mill brand’s prestige in a new global order (236). On this point, there is much food for thought in a post-Brexit world.
