Complacency and alarm

A further Bradford Chamber of Commerce delegation visited the 1867 Paris Exhibition, and endorsed Salt's remarks. The high quality of French goods was considered to be primarily due to the spinning system; the yarns had a softer and fuller handle and the wool was not oiled before spinning and so fewer problems arose in dyeing. In addition, Bradford had always catered for the mass middle and working class market, whereas the French concentrated on expensive materials made in small amounts.

 

 

The Bradford Observer had already (18 September 1862) expressed fears that the town had gone too far in the direction of cheapness and lightness, claiming that cheapness was being obtained at the expense of quality. Despite these and other warnings, the trade seemed unprepared when, soon after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, there was a complete switch in ladies' fashion, away from the harder and less flexible cloths suitable for wear with crinolines to softly draping, all-wool worsteds. The fashion persisted through to the 1890s and led to the complete reorganisation of the Bradford trade. Through the introduction of worsted coatings and, later, mackintosh cloths and worsted suitings and trouserings, it became primarily a men's wear trade.