We all love shopping at Boots for the latest make-up trends in 2021, but what was the shop like 150 years ago?
Historian Sophie Clapp, 50, has all the answers, as she is one of the chain’s archivists.
We chatted to her about the story of the high street, 17th-century beauty products, and how women in the 1930s designed their own beauty range.
Make-up or history — what was your first passion?
My interest in history came long before any make-up purchase. My dad had a real passion for history so we always visited historic buildings and read books. I did history at university and loved looking at original material.
Then a visiting lecturer told me about her job as an archivist from the national library — an incredible stroke of luck that totally changed my life. I took a postgrad course in archiving, then found my dream job at Cambridge University, working on Churchill’s papers.
It’s a big jump from Cambridge to Boots…
I worked at Guinness and then moved to Unilever and I relished the corporate environment — it was really dynamic and I loved how companies can use history.
If you’d have told me at 18 I’d be doing this, I would have thought it was quite dull but, actually, company history is a history of the high street, a wonderful social history and a glimpse into how we lived and how we worked and shopped.
Twenty years ago I was offered the chance to work with Boots and I’ve been with this collection ever since.
Is your job the ultimate beauty collection?
It’s a brilliant collection of the development of make-up over the 20th century — not just objects but archived documents that show how we marketed products at the time.
We have items that pre-date Boots — one of the earliest is a 17th-century apothecary chest.
Our beauty items are from the late Victorian period onwards. John Boot launched his herbalist store in Nottingham in 1849 and his son Jesse, who left school aged 13 when his father died, established the pharmacy and healthcare side of the business.
When he married Florence, she focused on developing beauty as well as introducing cafés and libraries into stores. We have letters written by Florence and some silk scrolls she used to give to female members of the company at Christmas.
The facts: What is it like to work as a beauty archivist?
Salary: The recommended starting salary for an archivist is £28,000 to £32,000
Regular hours? Yes, although if we’re involved in community or corporate events it can mean working occasional weekends or evenings. We might do evening talks or PR events where we take along some material or do displays
Short and sweet advice: Do something that you love
What exactly does your job involve?
My role is to protect, develop and promote our heritage collection, and that can involve identifying materials of interest, cataloguing items to make them accessible, conducting research, developing new research projects and sharing our history with the public in presentations and exhibitions.
Our collection is stored in Nottingham in a special temperature-, humidity- and lighting-controlled environment to preserve items as long as possible.
Any favourite pieces?
It’s so hard to choose favourites but the best are the ones with a story behind them and we’re always incredibly grateful that people are happy to deposit personal items.
Meeting them and hearing their stories is such a joy of this job. We once received a beautiful silver manicure set somebody had been given for a 21st birthday 100 years ago — it was a real lump-in-the-throat moment.
A No7 consultant’s training book from the 1940s is another standout item. She loved her job so much, she had drawn coloured illustrations of customers and products. She went into such detail of her day-to-day training, it shone a real light into the past.
What’s a cool piece of history behind No7?
When No7 looked to develop a cosmetics range in 1936, it asked consultants to recommend which products to develop. Bearing in mind the era, it was incredible that the men in suits in Nottingham turned to the women on the shop floor to ask for their advice.
They took the top five recommendations and turned them into beauty products so it responded to what women wanted.
The top recommendation was lipstick, overwhelmingly, then mascara, eyeshadow and rouge or blusher. In our archive collection we actually have cream from between 1935 and 1952.
How do you decide which items to archive?
Does it contain useful info that explains or describes an activity from the past? We tend to get materials through from the company and we rely on donations from members of the public.
One of the most memorable moments was hearing from somebody who had come to us asking for info about his mother — she used to be a dispenser and that ability to connect with her using the material, and for her to be able to use it to share stories, showed me how powerful this material can be.
Sophie’s Top Tip
‘Don’t be afraid to contact archivists for advice and guidance. Don’t be shy about showing your passion — and think about how companies you approach use their history’
What advice would you give someone else starting out?
Experience in the heritage sector is crucial but there’s variety in archives — you could work for a company, university, charity, museum or government.
Mistakes, you’ve made a few?
We often come across things such as utensils and tools that we can’t identify — we don’t know what they are. But through crowdsourcing and putting out photos, we generally find the right answer.
We have volunteers who used to work for the company and they help us work through the sheer volume of material.
What tip from history influences your beauty regime?
I would use the 1990s natural tones during the day and a combination of the 1960s eyeliner cat flick twinned with the gorgeous matte red lipstick of the 1940s.
No7 Beauty Company is home to brands including Liz Earle, No7, Sleek, Botanics and Soap & Glory. See no7company.com and boots.com
Do you have a story to share?
Get in touch by emailing [email protected].
How to get your Metro newspaper fix
Metro newspaper is still available for you to pick up every weekday morning or you can download our app for all your favourite news, features, puzzles… and the exclusive evening edition!
Download the Metro newspaper app for free on App Store and Google Play
Source: Read Full Article