By Neve Meats
This series of blog posts will zoom in on a snapshot of everyday life in Britain over the previous four decades (1980s-2010s) as recounted through Mass Observation Project material. Beginning with this blog on the Spring 1988 ‘Clothing’ directive, each blog post will focus on a topic of everyday life covered by MO, zooming in on respondents’ thoughts an opinions.
These blogs will also highlight the creative and visual content within MOP’s collections, including photographs, drawings and newspaper clippings sent as part of responses, which are of key interest in blog author Neve Meats’ wider research with MOP data. Subsequent blogs in the series will focus on the following themes: ‘Shopping in Britain’ 1995; ‘Animals and Humans’ (2009); ‘Your Bedroom’ (2017).
In a break from tradition of multi-faceted directives, the Spring 1988 directive invited MOP’s panellists to respond solely to questions one theme: clothing. In the correspondence sent out to the panel, director David Pockock acknowledged that this theme was often requested by respondents, and the outpouring of long, detailed letters sent into MOP (amassing some 6 boxes!).
Suggested tasks included to take stock of their wardrobes, describe how they categorised their clothes, whether they cared for and maintained their clothes, how they approached buying clothes, and how others’ opinions on clothing affected their clothing style and practices.
Many respondents completed these tasks in free prose with forensic detail, sending in upwards of ten pages! Another common approach to this directive was creating an ordered grid or list of clothes types, quantity and description -think of a handwritten excel spreadsheet. Amongst these broad trends though, a subsection of respondents chose to respond in a primarily creative or visual manner, and it is these types of responses which I shall showcase.
Immediately upon opening box 1 in the archive, a thick brown paper envelope bursting with contents leapt out at me. Intrigued, I slid the stack of paper out and found a very pleasing mix of paper types, sizes, and numerous fabric swatches (see the above image for an insight into the response). The MOP respondent, anonymised under the code B653, had clearly spent considerable time and effort in replying to MOP’s call for thoughts on clothing, describing the contents of her wardrobe in detailed notes and with physical examples of the patterns and textiles.
I was also amused by the resourcefulness of this respondent, writing on the reverse of a Christian Healing leaflet (green) and newspaper supplement poster (yellow). The varied elements of this response offer insight into the respondent’s home not only through her writing, but also the hints of which newspaper she reads (Telegraph) and communities she may be part of (Christian). These personal traces embellish our understanding of this respondent and what might have shaped her views on this topic.
Respondent B1794 expressed themselves in another creative, but markedly different way from B653, submitting a hand-drawn watercolour piece as part of their response. This accompanied four pages of tables providing a wardrobe inventory and one page of further elaboration.
This respondent notes her wardrobe needs updating but this isn’t a priority or possibility due to her current financial situation. When considering what she’d buy if given £250 (around £870 when adjusted to today’s inflation), I was interested to find she listed several types of material, with which she would make new clothes. In the current world of fast fashion and mass production, I felt a slight culture shock at this crafting mentality and skillset which was markedly more common in the 1980s compared to now.
C724 also responded by drawing items in her wardrobe, and by creating collages of brochure cut-outs, offering an insight into fashions and pricing of the time.
Again, the varied elements within this response offer us a glipse into the daily home life of this respondent by showing us examples of the catalogues she buys from and styles she picks, whilst situating these choices within the period of the 1980s.
By contrast, D1606 responds with a hand-drawn cartoon. His response amusingly begins with the claim that he found the topic of this directive a “turn-off”, yet he submitted 20 pages to the archive!
His quaint cartoon is astute and speaks to the intriguing nature of MO, that directives can inspire creativity in a way and quantity which is unexpected even by the respondents.
MO can also encourage respondents to share their pre-existing creative outlets, as V1601’s response attests, becoming an outlet for her to share photos of and pride relating to her self-designed and knitted kitten sweater.
Hopefully you’ve enjoyed this delve into the archive. Maybe it’s even inspired you to apply to write for MO yourself (the panel is currently open!). MO responses provide insight and inspiration for everyday creativity, whether that be in the act of creating a response, or providing an opportunity for respondents to share creative projects that their proud of.
By reading across directives and respondents, we can explore how MO interacts with and reflects everyday creativity.
Next month’s blog will explore the creative and visual responses to the ‘Shopping in Britain’ directive from 1995.