For a while now we have been passively collecting Montague Burton sales brochures from the golden age of the company. They are rare and difficult to come by so we only actually possess four. However, the National Archives possess a further eight and have published them online, along with a lot of other Burton material, on their Moving Here website which is dedicated to migration stories (Burton was a Jew from the part of Russia that is now Lithuania). They are published in a very awkward manner, however, so we have spent quite a lot of time putting the pages for each brochure into one PDF for ease of reading and have republished here (without permission) to make it easier for people to read them.
For us, this is the equivalent of a peacock fanning its tail, only the tail is a collection of four very alluring brochures.
From what we can tell, Montague Burton Ltd seem to have published two catalogues a year – one for Spring / Summer and one for Autumn / Winter, and appear to have prided themselves on their alliterative titles and hyperbolic self-congratualtion! We presume from the branch specific address on the first page that they were printed centrally then distributed to each branch for posting to their local mailing lists.
What we do know is that Burtons dedicated almost all of their marketing efforts to producing these brochures and encouraging local press to cover store openings as a big event. Each store kept an up to date copy of their local burgess list and mailed out brochures to everybody on them. It was an extraordinarily successful marketing strategy and accounts for why you never see print advertisements or posters advertising Burton during this period.
What follows is a list of which brochures we have. We do not know when they started producing print brochures or when they finished so it makes sense to start and finish with the earliest and latest we have, but that does not mean there aren’t others. If anyone reading this has any of the missing brochures then please let us know!
1927-1928 A-W: Character in Clothes
1928 S-S: Appreciative Apparel
1928-1929 A-W:
1929 S-S: Tasteful Tailoring**
1929-1930 A-W:
1930 S-S:
1930-1931 A-W:
1931 S-S: Correct Clothes
1931-1932 A-W: Sartorial Service
1932 S-S: Distinguished Dress
1932-1933 A-W: Artistic Attire*
1933 S-S:
1933-1934 A-W:
1934 S-S: Dress Distinction
1934-1935 A-W:
1935 S-S:
1935-1936 A-W:
1936 S-S: Matchless Modes
1936-1937 A-W:
1937 S-S: True Tailoring*
1937-1938 A-W:
1938 S-S:
1938-1939 A-W:
1939 S-S: Tailoring of Taste*
1939-1940 A-W: Tailoring Treasure*
1940 S-S: Forty Years of Tailoring
*Original copy owned.
**Seen elsewhere – neither owned nor viewed in British Library
Except waistcoats and trousers which only have the paper tag...
Andrews & Pygott: The Morning Dress Guide 