Abstract

"Synthetic Style on the London Catwalk: The Artificial Silk Exhibitions at Holland Park"

Regina Lee Blaszczyk, University of Leeds (R.Blaszczyk@leeds.ac.uk)

How do you take a new technology with limited sales appeal and transform it into coveted consumer merchandise? Artificial silk (later known as rayon) was invented in the late 19th century as an inexpensive silk substitute, but it long struggled to find a place in fashion. Well into the 1920s, artificial silk was mostly used for decorative ribbons, the braids on soldier’s uniforms, thick hosiery, and ladies’ intimate apparel. The British fiber giant, Courtaulds Ltd., led the world in artificial silk production, largely oblivious to consumers’ tastes and expectations. But from the mid 1920s onward, the British fashion system fixed its eyes on artificial silk as a textile with real fashion potential. The attitude had nothing to do with Courtaulds, but owed much to an independent promotion: the British Artificial Silk Exhibition, a celebration of textile ingenuity held annually at Holland Park Hall in Kensington.

The British Artificial Silk Exhibition was the brainchild of Holbrook Jackson, editor of Drapers’ Organiser, a London trade journal. Wide-ranging in his views, Jackson saw artificial silk as the fabric of the future, and in 1926, he launched an initiative to make it into the darling of high fashion. Sponsored by Drapers’ Organiser, the British Artificial Silk Exhibition raised the profile of rayon textiles far and wide. Every year, this week-long exposition attracted the “influencers” of the 1920s–international retail buyers, West End drapers, East End makers-up, and London fashionistas–to Holland Park catwalk shows that demonstrated how the innovative use of textile technology could advance British national style and feminine sensuality.

Historians of the textile industry have considered the history of artificial silk or rayon from the viewpoint of Courtaulds and other fiber producers. This essay shifts the focus to the marketplace and to actors like Holbrook Jackson, the West End dress designers, and the East End makers-up who collectively created a space for rayon in the fashion system. By focusing on the co-creators of a new business space, this paper dovetails nicely with the co-creation theme of the 2026 BHC meeting.