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Dating St Michael labels: Marks & Spencer label history.
The ultimate guide on how to date vintage St.Michael clothing labels from the 1930s to 1980s.
How to date your vintage Marks & Spencer lingerie - especially nylon slips, negligee sets, petticoats and knickers - with this St. Michael label dating resource. What could be more synonymous with vintage fashion than, say, Marks and Spencer vintage knickers? St.Michael high waisted knickers? But how can you find out when they were made? This page has lots of useful guides and information that can help you find out the true age of your vintage St.Michael garment.
Marks & Spencer dropped their famous St Michael clothing brand in the year 2000. Before that, the St Michael brand was famous for quality and choice and the different designs used for St Michael labels can give a guide to dating vintage Marks & Spencer clothing. Here is a helpful guide to dating your vintage St Michael garments using features of their labels. Marks and Spencer label codes are also explained here - a great identification tool. Have a look at the label styles outlined below decade by decade and compare them with your garment. If you know what to look for on each Marks & Spencer vintage label then you will be able to find out its approximate age.
How to date Marks & Spencer vintage clothing using St.Michael label logos - your definitive guide.
As a vintage clothing aficionada with a special interest in mid-century British lingerie, I have had literally hundreds of St.Michael undergarments in my possession and their often timeless styles have made accurate dating difficult.
This helpful article uses the long experience I have gained over the years of knowing how to accurately date vintage Marks & Spencer's St.Michael brand clothing using their label styles as a guide to identification. Over time, the style of each St.Michael label has changed to reflect the decade of manufacture of each garment. Sometimes a label style can only point to a particular decade. Other Marks and Spencer labels are specific to a certain year, making identification of your vintage item much easier.
Based on my experience with St.Michael vintage clothing I have been able to write this detailed article which I hope will help you with your research.
Regards, Emma Benitez.
How to date your 1920's and 1930's vintage St.Michael labels
It was way back in the 1920's that St Michaels Marks and Spencer started selling ladies underwear.
Key St.Michael label dating features of the 1920's and 30's:
- The now famous St Michael brand name was created in 1928.
- The term 'Superior Quality' was often used on Marks and Spencer garment labels.
- Marks and Spencer produced its first bra in the late 1920's.
- Labels were always embroidered.
- Block capitals were mostly used, rather than the more familiar handwritten script.
- The terms 'St.Michael Wear' and 'Reg'd' (Registered) were often used.
Marks and Spencer lingerie is born.
In the 1920's, Marks and Spencer made ready made fashion garments available in their stores for more and more consumers to buy. Every fashionable 1920s woman had more fashion choices then ever before.
Marks & Spencer lingerie advertisement from 1932.
How to date your 1940's vintage St.Michael clothing labels.
Austerity for the British consumer during the war years and afterwards.
Key 1940's St.Michael label dating features:
- The typeface used for 'St.Michael' was in an Art Deco style, using upper and lower case.
- The familiar handwritten vintage St.Michael logo was still not used in the 1940's, so identifying 1940s styles and your Marks & Spencer garments as 1940's fashion should be fairly straightforward.
- Some clothing had the Utility Scheme 'CC41' logo on the label (see photo above). This would date your garment to somewhere between 1942 and 1952. A helpful article on CC41 garments is here.
- Sizes included W, OS or WMS, and a British Standard (BS) code was quite often used.
- In the 1940s, sometimes the logo was shown inside a green shield.
- The letters 'REGd' appear after St Michael. Note that the 'd' is smaller in size than the other letters.
- Marks and Spencer first introduced nylon into their lingerie range as early as 1947. These wonderful 1940s styles are now highly collectible.
- By early 1940, Marks and Spencer had 30 different styles of bra on sale.
- Cup sizes were first introduced for bras in the late 1940s, in Small, Medium or Large.
Dating 1940's Marks & Spencer labels. How to date 1940's St.Michael lingerie labels, including CC41
For the long suffering British consumer during those dark war years and the austerity that came afterwards the St.Michael brand represented value and dependability at a time when it was needed most. Marks & Spencer's fortunes as a company suffered as a result of it's loyal contribution to the war effort. In 1944, Marks & Spencer's stock in trade fell to its lowest level since 1936 and full time staff fell from a pre-war level of 20,000 to just 9000 employees.
Fashion in the 1940s. A Marks & Spencer lingerie store counter in the 1940s.
How to date your 1950's vintage St.Michael clothing labels.
The St Michael brand name became fully established and all Marks & Spencer lingerie bore the logo.
Key 1950's St Michael vintage label dating features:
- The distinctive handwritten script logo style was first introduced in 1951.
- The 'St Michael' logo was mostly tilted slightly anti-clockwise to make room for the letters REGD.
- The letters 'REGD' were in upper case after 'St Michael'.
- 'Bri Nylon' and 'Bri Lon' appeared on labels, but only from 1959.
- BS (British Standard) code was still used in the early 1950s.
- Bra sizes were first introduced in 1951 - 'Small', 'Medium', and 'Full'
- The 1950's was the era of the bullet bra. Marks and Spencer bullet bras are highly collectible.
- Popular fabrics mentioned on labels included Nylon, Terylene, Jersey Nylon, Super Poplin, Marspun and Cotton Poplin.
- TIP: look out for St Michael logo labels printed in pink on a white background - these can date your garment to the early 1950's.
- TIP: Similarly, there are some St.Michael labels printed in red on a white background. In this case it can date your item to the later years of the 1950's.
- Tip: Stitched labels with gold on a white background are also occasionally seen and these are also dated to the 1950's. They show the same features as above.
Fact: in 1955, Marks and Spencer sold three-tier deeply frilled can-can petticoats for 22s 11d.
How to date 1950's vintage St.Michael clothing labels, including the famous 'blue' script label.
A British high street icon for ladies slips, petticoats, nightdresses and what would now be affectionately known as 'granny underwear', 'frilly knickers' or 'old fashioned Marks and Spencer's knickers'. By now the St.Michael brand name was fully established and all Marks & Spencer clothing products bore the name. Narrow waists were all the fashion and there was more interest in corsets as a result of this.
By 1954, Marks and Spencer offered no less than
27 different styles of nylon slip in their stores. Slips for under dresses were an essential part of a woman's wardrobe in the 1950's.
See 'Celebrating 90 years of M&S lingerie'
St Michael 'red label'. 1950s ladies fashion in labels.
Underwear fashion in the 50s carried the trusted Marks and Spencer label.
St Michael 'red label'. Much less common than their better known 'blue label' counterparts, labels stitched in red on a white background were used in the later years of the 1950's and are a useful way of dating vintage Marks and Spencer undergarments, especially shapewear, with the familiar St.Michael 'script' logo.
Photo courtesy of Lori at Rarely Wears Lipstick.
By 1954, Marks and Spencer offered no less than 27 different styles of St Michael nylon slip in their stores. Nylon petticoats and slips were hugely important for women's fashions in the 1950s and Marks and Spencer offered a suitably large range to cater for the demand. St.Michael 1950s underwear was always manufactured in Britain.
How to date your 1960's vintage St.Michael clothing labels.
The late 1950's and through the 1960's were the 'golden years' for Marks and Spencer womens fashion.
Key 1960s Marks & Spencer vintage label dating features:
- The St Michael logo was usually enclosed in a parallelogram shaped box.
- Usually there was an 'R' in a circle (®) instead of REGD after St.Michael.
- 1960's St Michael labels will usually say 'Made in Britain'.
- The first washing symbols were introduced in 1966.
- Marks and Spencer sold its first coordinating bra and girdle sets in 1965.
- The more familiar bra cup sizes A to D were phased in from 1969.
- More detailed wash care instructions were first introduced on St Michael labels from March 1968.
- TIP: some St.Michael lingerie labels were printed in black on a white background. Alongside the more familiar 'blue' labels, these black labels were used between 1961 and 1968.
- Fact: Marks and Spencer started selling tights in 1963.
- Marks and Spencer introduced their first tailored 'suit slip' or 'sheath slip' in 1961, especially designed for wearing under the sheath dresses and pencil skirts fashionable at the time. For more information on sheath slips, please see Nylon Nostalgia's article on the subject.
- St Michael brand bra slips were first sold in Britain by Marks & Spencer in 1966. Bra slips, as the name suggests, were a combination of bra and slip in one garment. For much more information on bra slips, please see our article 'Whatever Happened to the Bra Slip?'
How to date 1960's vintage St.Michael clothing labels - key identification features to look out for.
The best years for the St.Michael brand. The late 1950's and through the 1960's were the 'golden years', certainly for 50s fashion lingerie at least. Stores offered a fabulously wide range of classic lingerie that is fondly remembered to this day and Marks & Spencer was riding high on a wave of popularity with British shoppers. Old fashioned underwear it may be now, but back in those days Marks & Spencer were synonymous with lingerie, especially Marks and Spencer knickers, slips, bras, girdles and corsets in the 60s.
Fashion in the Sixties thrived at Marks & Spencer, especially 1960s women's undergarments .
A Marks & Spencer St.Michael lingerie counter in 1966. Lots of vintage knickers and slips on sale.
How to date your 1970's vintage St.Michael clothing labels.
1970's: St Michael brand women's 70s fashion lingerie.
Key Marks & Spencer vintage label dating features, plus how to understand Marks and Spencer 1970s fashion label codes:
- ‘Made in UK’ starts to replace ‘Made in Britain’ on labels as of 1970.
- By 1973 nearly all labels showed the size within a red circle.
- As of June 1972, Marks & Spencer started selling garments in their Canadian stores with ‘CA’ codes being shown on labeling. These labels also had some information written in French.
- As the 1970's moved on, more and more St Michael labels were printed rather than embroidered.
- TIP: Codes for Marks and Spencer revealed. Dating your 1970's vintage St.Michael clothing is easy if you know the code. Help is here! Look at the back of the label for a printed number using this format, '10/8', which in this case would mean your garment was manufactured in October 1978. '3/6' would therefore mean that your particular garment was made in March 1976, for instance. Once you know how to decipher these numbers you can accurately date your vintage St.Michael 70s fashion garment even down to the exact month and year. This is an extremely useful tool in accurately dating Marks & Spencer vintage lingerie. Unfortunately this easy to understand method of dating St.Michael brand items only applies to the 1970's.
Help is here! Dating your 1970's vintage St.Michael labels is really easy if you know the code.
Far from having old fashioned underwear, in the 1970's St.Michael brand lingerie was still going strong. More and more women were working and M&S was still the perfect place for underwear, especially for Marks and Spencer slips. New fabrics like Lycra were being used more and more in items like corsets and other 1970s undergarments like Marks and Spencer's knickers.
1980's: How to date your vintage St.Michael clothing labels.
1980's: The turning point for a mature brand?
Key 1980s vintage label dating features:
- The St Michael logo was written horizontally with a small 'R' ( ® for Registered) in the top right-hand corner.
- After 1984 the Universal Product Code ('UPC') appears as black on a yellow box background.
- 1980's St Michael labels now show the garment size prominently in different colour boxes.
What to look out for when dating your 1980's vintage St.Michael clothing labels. Help is at hand!
1980's: The turning point for a mature brand? Faced with increasing competition from the 'throwaway' culture of 1980s fashion, the St Michael brand had to change and adapt too. This was the age of Marks and Spencer front fastening bras. By the late 1980's, 38% of Mark & Spencer underwear was manufactured by Courtaulds (aka 'Britain's largest knicker-maker').
Article written by Emma Benitez. BA (Hons) in Fashion and Dress History, incurable vintage aficionado and owner of Nylon Nostalgia.
Emma is a fabric specialist for a lingerie manufacturer with operations in both Europe and Asia. She has also supplied fine vintage lingerie to media production companies, fashion designers and private collectors worldwide since 2009.
How Marks & Spencer slips and lingerie were manufactured.
A 1955 article describes each stage in the manufacture of Marks and Spencer nylon slips.
In this 1955 article, we look at how Marks & Spencer made their St.Michael brand lingerie, in this case nylon slips, showing each stage of manufacture and packaging. Standards of manufacture of all Marks and Spencer lingerie was set very high. At this time, Marks & Spencer had a strict 'buy British' policy involving very close relationships with their appointed UK lingerie manufacturers such as British Nylon Spinners (BNS), which gave consumers the impression - rightly or wrongly - that St.Michael lingerie made in Britain was made to a higher standard than overseas. St.Michael lingerie was certainly made to a very high standard and that high level of quality upheld the reputation of Marks and Spencer with shoppers throughout the years.
More useful information to help you identify vintage Marks & Spencer 'St.Michael' clothing labels.
Early 20th Century Underwear: M&S
Marks & Spencer Fashion Timeline
Lingerie in the 1960's and 1970's
Did you know that present-day Marks & Spencer sells around 60 million pairs of knickers per year!
1950s underwear for 1950s fashion. An ad for beautiful Marks and Spencer lingerie, sold under the St.Michael brand.
Marks & Spencer have a fabulous company archive and exhibition in Leeds, certainly well worth a visit.
Click on the link below to find out more.
M&S Company Archive
Michael Marks Building
University of Leeds
LS2 9JT
Visit the M&S Marks in Time website for more info
Read this interesting recent Mail Online article about a revival of interest in St Michael clothing.
Visit my Vintage Slip Size Guide.
Priceless 1950s pinup glamour tips that every girl should know.
Avoid these common mistakes when wearing stockings and suspenders.
Effective tips no one will ever tell you about wearing flouncy petticoats.
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