Metadata
WORK ID: NEFA 19706 (Master Record)
| Title | Year | Date |
| CO-OP FASHION HIGHLIGHTS | 1973 | 1973-01-01 |
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Details
Original Format: 16mm Colour: Colour Sound: Sound Duration: 6 mins 46 secs Credits: North East Co-operative Society Genre: Promotional Subject: Fashions |
| Summary This film is a basic record of a Co-operative Society fashion show held in the 1970s, which may have been produced for internal Co-operative Wholesale Society (CWS) purposes only. The location is not identified. Female models parade a variety of fashions on a stage and catwalk. Musical accompaniment seems to be a pastiche soundtrack of old hits from the 1920s to 1970s. |
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Description
This film is a basic record of a Co-operative Society fashion show held in the 1970s, which may have been produced for internal Co-operative Wholesale Society (CWS) purposes only. The location is not identified. Female models parade a variety of fashions on a stage and catwalk. Musical accompaniment seems to be a pastiche soundtrack of old hits from the 1920s to 1970s.
A Co-op fashion show begins as the camera tilts down from the white embossed Co-op logo on the stage wall to reveal three...
This film is a basic record of a Co-operative Society fashion show held in the 1970s, which may have been produced for internal Co-operative Wholesale Society (CWS) purposes only. The location is not identified. Female models parade a variety of fashions on a stage and catwalk. Musical accompaniment seems to be a pastiche soundtrack of old hits from the 1920s to 1970s.
A Co-op fashion show begins as the camera tilts down from the white embossed Co-op logo on the stage wall to reveal three models. Two models pose in mini-skirt suits with white shiny vinyl calf-high go-go boots. A third model parades on the catwalk in a white, belted mini raincoat and red vinyl go-go boots. There’s a small audience watching in the venue.
The next three models on the catwalk are wearing white, black and red vinyl mini raincoats, go-go boots and cloche hats. They turn and leave the stage.
The camera zooms out from a close-up on a model in a black floppy hat, white classic raincoat and black go-go boots, who strolls along the catwalk. The two other models take a spin down the catwalk in casual rainwear two-piece outfits.
A close-up follows of a woman modelling a folksy (or hippie-chic) floral outfit with striped maxi cardigan, and a long head-wrap scarf with a side tie. The two other models are in similar gear, one wearing a patchwork suede waistcoat and knickerbocker style trousers and calf-length boots.
There’s a wide shot of the stage and catwalk as three models emerge in summer beachwear shades of white and pale pink, the lead model dancing gaily in bolero top with bare midriff and holding a cluster of balloons.
Two models wear bug-eye sunglasses, white dungarees or midi-coat and trousers, and dance in synch along the catwalk. A close-up focuses on their footwear.
Four models emerge dancing on stage in casual cardigan and trouser combinations, sporting long head-wrap scarves with a side tie.
Two women model sleeveless tunics and flared trousers in shades of brown and mustard, with 1920s style cloche hats and sling back shoes as accessories.
Next, three models are in vibrant pink trouser suits with white vinyl go-go boots.
The next three models display evening wear and hair styles including floral maxi and midi outfits – a shiny paisley, wide-legged jumpsuit features on one model and silver shoes are worn by all the models.
Three models come on stage spinning floral parasols and countrified knee-length floral dresses with flowery hats. One model twirls round and round on the catwalk.
All the different models emerge on the catwalk and stage for a finale and the camera zooms in on one smiling model with parasol.
Context
A fun Co-op fashion parade welcomes in the bad taste 70s.
Models in ice-cream colours, patchwork and floaty flares trip onto a Co-operative Wholesale Society catwalk to entertain with couture and choreography on the wrong side of cool. Lovers of retro fashion will adore the hippie bohemian fashion, Jackie-O bug eye sunglasses, and wet-look go-go boots, once popularised by Nancy Sinatra’s hit song.
The Co-operative Wholesale Society (CWS) were among the pioneers of sponsored and industrial...
A fun Co-op fashion parade welcomes in the bad taste 70s.
Models in ice-cream colours, patchwork and floaty flares trip onto a Co-operative Wholesale Society catwalk to entertain with couture and choreography on the wrong side of cool. Lovers of retro fashion will adore the hippie bohemian fashion, Jackie-O bug eye sunglasses, and wet-look go-go boots, once popularised by Nancy Sinatra’s hit song. The Co-operative Wholesale Society (CWS) were among the pioneers of sponsored and industrial film, producing short films on their factories and workers from 1898, only 2 years after the first ever demonstration of moving pictures in London. The modern Co-operative movement continued to use film as ideological propaganda, advertising, education, for social campaigns but also for entertainment. Programmes were screened in community halls, the Women’s Institute, mobile cinema units and CWS run cinemas into the 1970s and later. The first co-operative cinema was opened in Meadowfield, County Durham, in 1915. In an article for the society journal The Wheatsheaf, October 1922, G. Curtis wrote: 'Let us have our own cinema and show the big feature films as they are released. Here is a chance for the co-operative movement to contribute to the amusement of the tired worker. Note that, amusement. We are not asking you to join a class. We are not asking you to read a book. We are inviting you to see in your own comfortable super cinema "The Girl Who Slipped on the Soap", featuring Lilian Gish. Ay, and to draw dividend on the purchase money of your ticket.' The Co-op film units contributed greatly to the tradition of workers’ and Left-political film. At an international Co-operative educational conference in Paris in 1954, attended by delegates from eighteen countries, "the use of films and picture strips for the instruction and enlightenment of co-operative members" was empasised on the film working party agenda. However, the movement's productions also included stereoscopic film adverts and all-colour musical publicity films such as Co-operette in 1938 with Stanley Holloway, featuring the “Carrot and Onion Dance” routine against a backdrop of cans of food. And in 1937 the Co-op claimed to be ‘the only organisation in the country using colour cartoons on the lines of Mickey Mouse for film propaganda.’ The Co-operative Movement were not slow in tapping into the glamour attached to cinema and film stars for publicity, and from the mid-1950s, commercial television. A native of Rochdale, like the Co-op, Gracie Fields was supportive of the trading organisation, recording the novelty song, 'Shopping at the Co-op Shop' in 1929, and never failing to visit stores when playing at local theatres, such as Newcastle and Birmingham in 1930. Film actor Richard Attenborough featured regularly in promotions for 'Defiant' radios and televisions, and may have been under contract to the CWS. The Movement also capitalised on the fame of former employees such as a huge star of the stage and screen from the 1950s, Richard Burton, a former assistant at the Taibach and Port Talbot Society. And, internationally, Greta Garbo, who promoted bakery products for the Consumer's Cooperative of Stockholm in one of her first jobs before the cameras, Our Daily Bread in 1922, and had once worked at the Stockholm department store of the Kooperativa Forbundet - The Swedish Cooperative Union. The North East of England was one of the strongholds of the co-operative movement. In 1872 Newcastle was the location chosen for the first branch of the Co-operative Wholesale Society. The CWS grew out of the Rochdale Equitable Pioneers Society, formed by a group of impoverished Lancashire weavers. They opened the first successful Co-op shop at Toad Lane in 1844 to combat profiteering by the ‘middle-men’ and the adulteration of food: sawdust was commonly added to tea and chalk to flour. Members benefited from a reading room and the quarterly ‘divi’ (dividend) share of profits. Many will still remember “Divi Day” when parents would often buy a new pair of shoes or coat for the kids. The CWS became wholesaler, manufacturer, importer, farmer, publisher, banker and insurance provider to the Co-operative Movement. Joseph Cowen (founder of the Newcastle Chronicle, a radical politician and Newcastle MP, popularly known as the “Blaydon Brick”) pushed to open the first CWS Newcastle Branch and served as President of the first day of the 1873 Co-operative Congress. Tyne and Wear was the location for many fine Co-operative warehouses and stores including one of the first British ferro-concrete engineered designs by Louis Gustave Mouchel and François Hennebique for the CWS bonded Quayside warehouse, completed in 1900, and considered the oldest surviving large-scale reinforced concrete building in Britain. This Grade II listed early modern warehouse was refurbished in 1994 under the ownership of Tyne and Wear Development Corporation, and is currently (in 2019) the hotel Malmaison Newcastle. The Newcastle headquarters moved to the grand, purpose-built building at West Blandford Street in 1899, once described as a “striking symbol of commercial success” and now home to the Discovery Museum. The later magnificent central Co-operative department store on Newgate Street opened on 10 September 1932, and was finally completed in 1934. Designed by LG Ekins, chief architect of the Co-operative Wholesale Society in London until 1941, this building was an Art Deco temple to shopping in response to the retail boom of the 1920s and early 1930s. Amongst the design details, the cast figures of running men supporting the brass bannister of the grand stairwell are a delight, and it's hard not to think of them as a celebration of the industrious Co-op workers. The store, with its imposing north and south towers, still stands but finally closed its doors on New Years Eve, 2011 References: The British Consumer Co-operative Movement and Film, 1890s-1960s, Alan Burton ( Manchester University Press, 2005) The People's Cinema: Film and the Co-operastive Movement, Alan Burton (National Film Theatre, 1994) http://www.engineering-timelines.com/scripts/engineeringItem.asp?id=1127 https://www.archive.coop/collections/coop-film-archives http://manchesterhistory.net/architecture/1930/newcastlecoop.html http://radicaltyneside.org/events/newcastle-co-operative-society-department-store https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/history/inside-117-newgate-street-secrets-9004984 |
