Cabbage, Tradition and Bunce : Marion Donaldson and the Black Economy of the British Rag Trade in the 1970s
- Submitting institution
-
The University of Huddersfield
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 12
- Type
- D - Journal article
- DOI
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10.1080/00404969.2019.1652134
- Title of journal
- Textile History
- Article number
- -
- First page
- 187
- Volume
- 50
- Issue
- 2
- ISSN
- 0040-4969
- Open access status
- Compliant
- Month of publication
- September
- Year of publication
- 2019
- URL
-
-
- Supplementary information
-
-
- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
-
0
- Research group(s)
-
-
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- This article explores illicit aspects of the British rag trade in the 1970s through examination of so-called ‘cabbage’, a fundamental but hitherto obscure pillar of the black economy in British fashion production. While scholars from a variety of disciplines (sociology and economics, in particular) have addressed aspects of the mechanics of the British fashion industry, few have been privileged with access to authoritative accounts of the industry, instead relying on the official record as generated by governments or the Inland Revenue. In addition to analysis of legal, archival, and material culture sources, this article is based on rigorous oral historical research with candid rag trade actors, and thus makes an important corrective to the existing record. It examines the ways in which the fashion company Marion Donaldson (in business between 1966 and 1999) encountered ‘cabbage’, and how it negotiated with the black market as an integral part of doing business in the British rag trade. Hidden economies in illegal but accepted cultures of production and consumption in the rag trade are thus highlighted as a way of enriching our understanding of the complexities of the post-war British fashion business. The article offers, for the first time, a comprehensive definition of ‘cabbage’ as it was understood in the rag trade, and explains how notions of illegality and criminality were negotiated within the trade. By shedding new light on the prevalence, profitability and subsequent decline of the black market, this article also offers a new perspective to explain the deterioration and eventual collapse of British fashion manufacturing at the end of the twentieth century.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -
