Woolworth builds its fashion range : 1950-1980

By 1940 wartime inflation had made the Woolworth 'Nothing over Sixpence' policy untenable. The Board reluctantly gave in to the inevitable and started to reinvent the brand. Fashion was identified as a key area of growt potential after the price constraint was removed.

Throughout the 1940s clothing was rationed. The Government introduced the measure in an attempt to spread stocks fairly. Supplies were limited because many factories that had made clothes in peacetime had switched to manufacturing items to support the war effort. In an era of strong central direction, some were told to make military uniforms while others were required to re-tool so that they could make munitions or parts for tanks and aeroplanes.

Everybody was issued with a ration book. To make a purchase of a rationed item people had to pay with money and one or more coupons which the shop cut from the book. Strict rules governed the sale of fashions, which were classified into lots of types based on what they were for and what material they had been made with. There was a different coupon and ration for each type.

Having coupons was no guarantee that an item would be available. Customers had to shop around. The shortages and rationing continued long after the war ended, as factories switched first to making 'demob' (demobilisation) suits for returning servicemen and then to make goods for export to pay down the national debt.

As rationing eased in the early 1950s, the Woolworth management was keen to develop the fashion range. The goal was to make modern clothing available to ordinary people at affordable prices. By 1953 the Buyers had built a wide selection of everyday wear. The larger stores stocked lots of woollen jumpers, blouses and shirts as well as a range of school and casual clothes for children. The smaller branches stocked a more limited range, picking the best sellers. Every branch carried underwear and hosiery for all the family.

As new stores were opened and older ones were modernised, they were fitted with compact hanging displays for kidswear which looked very modern. This style of display was new to the British retail scene, and was an example of the High Street chain exploiting design ideas from its American parent company.

By chance government rules favoured Woolworth. Rival retailers like Marks and Spencer were severely constrained by rules that restricted the amount that they could import. But because the restrictions limited the number of garments imported to pre-war levels rather than the value of the imports, Woolworth was able to switch from the sixpenny knickers and socks of the Thirties to much more expensive dresses, jumpers and coats.

With stifled competition and plenty of new product ideas, sales rocketed ! Woolworths enjoyed a golden era in the Fifties, rapidly opening 300 stores and taking the firm's shares right to the top of the Stock Market, second only to the chemical giant ICI (Imperial Chemical Industries).

But by the 1960s the British economy was buoyant. The restrictions had ended, resulting in much more competition.

Woolworth responded by dropping prices on their brightly-coloured range. Margins were maintained by moving production of some lines overseas, and by reducing quality on some of their own-label 'Winfield' lines.

After a decade when it seemed Woolworth was unbeatable, its management had mis-read the market. Customers had become more discerning. Some described the overseas Winfield lines as 'shoddy'. If the chain was to succeed as a clothing brand, it would need to stop treating clothing as a commodity like a dish-mop and start making garments that were nicer to wear and more aspirational.

The firm's response to the product quality challenge, and to customer demand for brighter colours and higher fashion items, was to embrace new man-made materials. As a result many of the items in the Winfield range adopted nylon and courtelle fabrics in place of poorly made imported wool and cotton garments. The new selection was showcased in a new-look store at Gallowtree Gate in Leicester in the Autumn of 1965. Virtually every colour of the rainbow was represented in a single sixty foot (18m) personal service counter!

More was to follow as plans were laid to open the firm's first out-of-town superstore - a Woolco - at Oadby nearby. This would see a quadrupling of the size of the fashion range stocked by the Company.

The thinking behind Woolco was born out of the F. W. Woolworth American parent company's purchase of the fashion giant Richman Brothers in 1962, and followed successful trials in Columbus, Ohio and a rapid roll-out on the other side of the Atlantic. While British bosses were sceptical about the potential of out-of-town shopping, it was soon clear that the new format was a hit with customers and that the fashion ranges offered the scope for higher margins and bigger overall customer purchases. Before long (as illustrated above), Woolco was stocking a large range of men's suits, alongside ladies dresses and a full childrenswear range.

Scepticism among the top British management about out-of-town meant that for every Woolco opening, several City Centre Woolworth stores were extended and enlarged, allowing the firm to stock much of the Woolco range in the largest High Streets. For example the store in Ipswich, Suffolk was quadrupled in size to a remarkable 120,000 square feet (11,148m²), making it rather larger than a Woolco and able to carry the firm's full section of goods.

By 1969 every Woolworth store had a fashion department. In the smaller branches the range was limited to underwear, hosiery, nightwear and occasional special offers. The larger High Street stores had outerwear for men, women and children. The quality varied widely from one garment to another. A growing chain of Woolco out-of-town stores offered a more comprehensive selection, which was generally better made. At the time supermarkets sold groceries in the town-centre. Only Tesco had started to experiment with a few fashions as part of their Home and Wear selection.

Despite their best endeavours, the Woolworth Buyers struggled to match Marks and Spencer's reputation for fashionable, well-made British clothes, opting for much cheaper lines, many of them imported from Hong Kong and Eastern Europe. A 1970 business review highlighted the shortcomings and prompted a determined effort to improve the fashion range. For the first time outside talent was brought in to drive an improvement strategy, rather than relying on home-grown Buyers. The move and a barage of advertising did little to change the public's perception of the range.

Despite a big push during the 1970s, against a backdrop of rapid price inflation and with limited funds to invest, Woolworth had little success in improving the perceived value of its fashion range. The small Woolco chain far outperformed the High Street, but struggled to grow. Identical products sold well out-of-town but badly in City Centres, perhaps because of the difference in ambience and shopping environment between the two formats. The range seemed better suited to a department store layout than the 'squeeze-it-all-in' bazaar nature of a Seventies Woolies.

Sadly some of the better selling products only served to emphasise the down-market image of the clothing range. Every Christmas from 1975 to 1980 the top lines were ladies simulated leopardskin and fur coats for £4.99. Store staff called these the 'Bet Lynch' coat after the Coronation Street character.

The one noteable success of the seventies fashion-drive was a sizeable share of the lucrative back-to-school market. Gradually Marks and Spencer, British Home Stores, Littlewoods and F.W. Woolworth took the place of traditional school outfitters, offering uniforms at much lower prices. Woolworth lured shoppers with a one-stop solution that also offered a comprehensive range of budget stationery as well as lunchboxes and accessories.

The legendary TV advertising campaign, the Wonder of Woolworth, which aired from 1975 to 1979, regularly featured clothing. Pop sensations The Nolans  even did a dance on the clothing counters, while Georgie Fame, Sir Jimmy Young and Sir Harry Secombe all gave their own take on the products.

The campaign brought many customers through the door and boosted clothing sales, but did little to address customers' perception of poor quality, even though the garments had improved considerably over the previous ten years. Somehow Woolworth never managed to achieve the balance between price and quality on their adult clothing that later brought success to Matalan, Peacocks and Primark.

A further influx of expertise from outside the business brought a new fashion campaign in 1980, with a rash of advertisements in colour magazines under the banner 'Oh Woolworth how you've changed'. The aspirational message was in marked contrast to the old-fashioned, down-market feel of many of the stores.

Editorials in The Observer and The Sunday Times  fashion magazines compared Woolworth fashions for pennies with the branded alternatives and highlighted some of the strengths. But, after years of disappointment, it was clear that it would take a long time to win customers around to the new ranges. The Board was happy to wait it out and to let the advertising agency sprinkle their magic, building on the success that they had enjoyed with the wider Wonder of Woolworth campaign in the late 1970s.

Work on the re-launch was brought to an abrupt halt after the business was taken over in 1982. The new owners concluded the Fashion Strategy had failed and that rather than being a jack-of-all-trades Woolworth should concentrate its efforts on establishing a comprehensive, high quality selection for children.

Executives put on a brave face for advertising campaigns in 1983 and 1984, as they sold through the adult fashion lines that had already been ordered. The stores sold a further 100,000 simulated fur coats, still for £4.99 before the range disappeared from the shelves in Spring 1985. The space was taken by extended ranges of Ladybird clothes for children and a broader selection of Toys.

Several of the new joiners from 1980 actually drove the Ladybird revolution at Woolworths, with some remaining with the business until the bitter end in January 2009.

It would be fifteen years before adult clothing from Peacocks made a last gasp appearance in a handful of High Street and out-of-town stores at Big W, shortly before the chain's demerger from Kingfisher.

The Ladybird and Fashion Gallery

Fashion overview (1909-2009)   Make it yourself patterns and thread   The Ladybird Legend is born

Woolworths' first Ladybird items (from the 1930s Gallery)    History of the Ladybird Company    Building fashion sales (1950-80)

Launch of Ladybird at Woolies     Kids and Celebrations In-Store     The Easter Parade

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