I posted this some time ago when we were discussing this topic;
From the book 'Knickers' by Rosemary Hawthorne;
"The trademark of the War years is the Utility label found attached to all manufactured clothing from 1942, through the post-war years, up to 1953. The designer of the well know CC41 label was Reginald Shipp who worked as a commercial artist for an old-established firm, Hargreaves, near Oxford Street. They were designers and suppliers of manufacturers' labels: their work covered retail, clothing, club and uniform labels. In 1940 Hargreaves, amongst several other companies, were asked to submit designs for the Utility mark that the Board of Trade wished to issue in 1941. Reginald Shipp's design was selected and he received, along with his company, a letter of commendation. The Board of Trade also awarded Mr Shipp a personal prize of £5. He lived in Barnes, London and died in 1962. It is quite likely therefore that Shipp designed this slightly later label which could be used after 1945, when rationing was still in force, on a luxury garment. This label depicts the full circle and double lines either side. The label would have indicated perhaps that better fabric, more luxurious, had been used, or more material. It seems that clothes in a luxury category carried something like 25% more purchase tax, Obviously it meant there were very few garments around that bore this mark - better class corsets appear to occasionally boast the luxury mark because they used many restrictive materials - but after 1949 CC41 controls on clothing were lifted and Utility labels were not added to garments."
Here is a reference from Judy Attfield, ed. Utility Reassessed: The Role of Ethics in the Practice of Design. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1999. 268 pp., 53 b/w ills., index.
Reviewed by Victor Margolin
"Further tension between the Board of Trade’s design policies and women’s culture is described by Helen Reynolds in her essay on the Utility Clothing Scheme, whose primary aim was to produce new clothing with as little labor, power, and material as possible. According to Reynolds, government control over the clothing industry during the war, which included an extreme number of regulations, was unique in British history. The Board of Trade’s encouragement of mass production countered the pre-war practice whereby much of Britain’s clothing was produced by small tailors and dressmakers. Because of the government’s mass production policy, the number of small firms was considerably reduced after the war. The Board of Trade also instituted a Couturier Scheme to provide innovative fashion designs but, although the government succeeded in dressing the British public at a low price, the result in the postwar period was the expansion of mass manufactured clothing rather than a legacy of new simple designs. In fact, many manufacturers in the lower end of the fashion market, reverted to the “fussy design” of the prewar period."
