Mr Drage, Mr Everyman, and the creation of a mass market for domestic furniture in interwar Britain

This paper examines strategies used by durable goods retailers to create a mass market in interwar Britain, via a case-study of domestic furniture. Interwar demand for new furniture witnessed particularly rapid growth - mainly owing to the extension of the market to lower-income groups. A number of innovative national retailers eveloped liberal HP facilities to bring furniture within the economic reach of these groups, while sophisticated national advertising campaigns were used to both legitimise buying furniture on HP and project furnishing by this means as key to achieving the type of aspriational lifestyles being promulgated in the popular media.