The New Cool

During the London Blitz, shopworkers rescued evacuees and served customers from bomb-damaged premises. The war created flexible working opportunities on the shop floor and gave rise to a new concept, the working mum. By the 1960s, teenagers emulated the beautiful shopgirls working in trendy boutiques like Mary Quant's Bazaar in London's Kings Road. Shopgirls were crucial to the success of stores like Biba, where their jobs were more about modelling the clothes and hanging out rather than giving customers the hard sell.