I am working on the journalism of Madeline Linford, the first woman on the staff of the Manchester Guardian.
( madelinelinford.wordpress.com ) This is her article on "The Holiday Clothes of Lancashire: Whit-Week Fashions " published on 10th June 1922)
Blackpool, Friday
The other day, in a Manchester tram, the writer of this article heard one woman say to another : “There isn’t anywhere in the world as picturesque as Blackpool. Eh, it’s a lovely place!” As she spoke there arose a mental vision of the Alps bowing their proud white heads, of Avignon and Terminus and Clovelly crumbling into dust because another had arisen greater than they.
In plain fact Blackpool is an ugly place. It is obviously lovable, but apart from its sea and the golden wine of its air has no claims at all to beauty. It is a town of flatness and right angles, of hard reds and drab greys, without a trace of graciousness or mystery to soften and smudge it. There is no seaside resort in England that sets less store on aesthetic appeal.
This week Blackpool looks its best. By June the coats of new paint acquired during the winter have not had time to fade, and there is still a hint of reserve in the mist and sunshine. Nobody is as yet blatantly sunburnt, and the pretty new fashions have not yet lost their first effectiveness. In another month or so the wrong people will have seized them and distorted them into caricatures. Just now they are still fresh, and a little surprising.
All along the front and the North Pier new clothes are being displayed. Whit-week to Lancashire folk means what Easter Sunday does to people of other countries; it is the time for a general restocking of the wardrobe. To buy new garments and air them at Blackpool is to obey the tradition that also insists on parkin at Hallow-e’en and stodgy cakes in the middle of Lent. Consequently the town this week has something of the look of an ugly garden riotously invaded by spring.
The most noticeable thing the Whitsuntide fashions is that they are very much prettier than those of last summer. Then the correct wear was a skimpy cretonne frock of very vivid colours and a hideously hard Lenglen bandean to match. This year cretonne is not worn , and much that was unbecoming and in bad taste has gone with it. It is rather surprising to find that the possibilities of cotton foulard have not been discovered yet. The only people wearing it here are a few children, whom it does not suit at all. It is a musly material, very cheap, and looking so.
Emphatically, the material of the early summer is ratine. Blackpool is full of it. And because it is apparently only made in simple designs and good colours the effect is distinctly pleasant. Probably the majority of the frocks have cost barely twenty shillings each, and are of the slip-on style , which needs a minimum of stuff. But while they are new, as they are this week, they are both pretty and comfortable. By the August wakes their faults of shrinking and fading will have come to the fore and their popularity have waned a little. Just now they are very much in favour, and certainly in the prevailing cool and tones of striped beiges and pinks and greys they have every good quality.
Next to popularity, a long way behind, some materials of the zephyrs type. These are cooler than ratine and more durable, but because they are not new Blackpool does not care much for them. They, too, are cheap and only made in good colours. The few one noticed looked extremely nice. Only one girl was seen wearing a new Shetland wool frock, and she was not quite slim enough to look really well in it. Nearly all the hats are of the Panama persuasion if not the actual thing, and the correct wrap seems to be a white blanket coat. The season’s shoes are fantastic and generally ugly.
Two of the eccentricities of Lancashire women are obvious this week. One is their reluctance to leave any good thing in seclusion. It is extraordinary how hard some people find it to put away their furs in moth powder and leave them until the autumn. Here in Blackpool it is very common to see a girl in a short-sleeved cotton frock, white shoes and stockings and a shady hat , and with the heavy skin of a fox slung across her shoulders. On a day when even to carry a handkerchief seemed an intolerable burden scores of women paced the North Pier through the blazing hours of noon with the symbols of December weighing down their June.
Another characteristic of Lancashire clothes is the “After Blackpool comes Wigan” look about them. Londoners chose their holiday garments for Brighton or Southend without thought of the morrow. In the North people remember that while Blackpool lasts a week Manchester and Oldham go on more or less for ever. We are so used to consideration of “showing the dirt” that we fear to buy fragility. Thus Blackpool sees very few white frocks, even on children, though white, because it cannot fade, is certainly the best choice for seaside wear. But white would be little use when Whit-week is over, so it is discouraged.