Uniforms: 1930s -1963

Women first began work as counter sales staff in 1914, and early photographs show some variation in their uniforms.

Regulations stated that:

'every saleswoman’s hair should be particularly neat and tidy, and no one can be allowed to serve in a branch with loose or flowing hair over the forehead or ears.'

By the late 1930s, the growing female workforce wore standard overalls,  made from stout buff cotton with a maroon collar and cuffs, and remembered by former staff as being ‘terrors to wash and iron’.

In 1952 regulation ‘nylonette’ headscarves were introduced, and the May 1952 issue of the staff magazine ‘JS Journal’ invited readers to arrange eight photographs of the new headwear in ‘order of suitability for the job of selling foodstuffs’. First prize was fifteen guineas to spend at a dress shop of the winner’s choice, while consolation prizes included six permanent waves and twelve pairs of Nylon stockings.