Marks & Spencer's

British fashion history records that Marks & Spencer produced the best ready to wear chain store clothes in the fifties and quadrupled their profits at the same time.  Their clothes were not the least expensive, but they were the best value for money.  The quality became so high in the 1950s that limits were set on production as everyone wanted the affordable stylish Paris inspired 1950s glamour.
In the late fifties, early sixties, a popular style was the knitted sweater dress with crew, shirt tab front or cowl necks and made from Orlon or Lambswool.  It was a warm garment in a Britain still not centrally heated and it was made universally popular by Marks & Spencer.  Beneath the sweater dresses women wore long line bras and girdles that covered the individual thighs.
The higher standard of manufacture of utility clothes had ironed out pre-war problems and new skills had been gained that enabled designers, manufacturers and chain stores to produce quality goods to a high specification.  After the war mass produced ready made clothes were far removed from the shoddy workmanship of pre-war days and any stigma attached to early ready made clothes was forgotten once royalty bought ready made clothes.
Marks & Spencer literally became part of the nation's fabric in the following fifty years so that today ordering worldwide from them via the internet is a simple operation for fast delivery, but at present to addresses in the UK only.