The relationship between Yorkshire fashion consumers and their clothing in the 20th Century

The research explores preliminary work conducted for an extended research project that investigates how attitudes towards the quality and quantity of clothing possessions, their length of active service and their disposal has changed over the course of the twentieth century. This phase of the study utilises the Yorkshire Fashion Archive (YFA), housed at University of Leeds, as a resource to examine clothing and social history within the Yorkshire region in the twentieth century. It also considers the value of the relationships between clothing and the wearer. The emotional connections to particular items of clothing are examined through interviews with donors and the oral histories connected to donated items. An object-based research approach is adopted to analyse a selection of the handmade and mended clothing from the archive. In an area such as Yorkshire with a rich textile heritage, the material objects and oral histories connected to them give a wealth of information about the lives of Yorkshire people in the twentieth century. This permits an analysis of the changes in the skill base in the region, both in commercial manufacture and the making of clothing in the home as well as consumers’ shifting attitudes towards the clothes they chose to wear themselves.