Here’s a relevant piece. Erin Blakemore of JSTOR Daily offers a brief history of back-to-school shopping.
A taste:
Saddle shoes and sweaters, milk bars and ballerina flats. In the mid-twentieth century, you could find all four at college shops: pop-up stores for young women that appeared in early fall within large department stores. Historian Deirdre Clemente resurrects them as an example of the intriguing interconnections between buyers, sellers, and clothing manufacturers—places where you could both procure a Peter Pan–collared shirt and witness how young women influenced the world around them.
As women flocked to colleges and universities in the early twentieth century, they began to shape not just higher education but the fashion industry. Department stores, which had established themselves as the predominant clothing retailers by the early twentieth century, began to cater to college women.
Then, in the 1930s, college shops emerged within department stores. Every September, women collegians could browse for the latest trends in college wear within a seasonal “shop” that offered clothing designed for and influenced by college students, who sometimes also worked in college shops themselves.
Read the rest here.
