Accounting and the construction of the standard body

Description
Early twenty first century Western society is commonly portrayed as a consumer society. Yet accounting research
has to date neglected to explore the possible role of accounting technique in the intricate linkages between consumption,
body size and individualism. This paper seeks to examine an accounting innovation introduced by early twentieth
century department store management.

Accounting and the construction of the standard body
Ingrid Jeacle*
Accounting Group, School of Management, The University of Edinburgh, William Robertson Building,
50 George Square, Edinburgh EH8 9JY, UK
Abstract
Early twenty ?rst century Western society is commonly portrayed as a consumer society. Yet accounting research
has to date neglected to explore the possible role of accounting technique in the intricate linkages between consump-
tion, body size and individualism. This paper seeks to examine an accounting innovation introduced by early twentieth
century department store management. The paper unravels the workings of garment alteration overhead allocations
and the linkages between such accounting innovation and the creation of the statistical standard body size.
#2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Contemporary Western consumer society is
permeated with images of what is perceived to be
the ‘normal’ body. The notion of the standard
body size is a recurrent theme in popular culture.
Standardized clothes sizing is perhaps the ultimate
expression of a technology of the body. Standard
sizing assigns a statistically generated number to
every bodily form. It is a powerful normalising
tool (Foucault, 1977). If clothing is a medium for
the expression of individuality then the attainment
of the socially acceptable standard clothes size is
an important component of that individuality.
This paper explores the construction of a techno-
logy of the body in consumer society and the role
which accounting plays in that history. Account-
ing innovation in the garment alteration work-
room of the early twentieth century department
store is explored. Applying translation theory
(Callon, 1986; Latour, 1987), accounting, it is pro-
posed, played a pivotal role in forming and sustain-
ing the network of interests fundamental to the
emergence of a standard sizing system. Accounting,
it is argued, integrated the body into consumer
society via the construction of the standard size.
The accounting innovations which form the
focus of this study lay, initially, if not beyond the
boundaries of accounting practice of the period,
then certainly at the very margins of conventional
practice (Miller, 1998). The de?ning of what con-
stitutes as accounting is a futile exercise; what lies
within or without the boundaries is a moveable
feast. Miller’s thesis acknowledges, embraces even,
the permeability of accounting. Its ?uid and
mobile nature encourage a meshing with alternate
bodies of knowledge and social practice. New
insights gained from beyond the boundaries
invariably problematise existing accounting prac-
tice. ‘Modern’ techniques proposed as a solution
can contribute to a transformation in accounting
and a continuous reshaping of the boundaries.
During the early decades of the twentieth cen-
tury the issues of garment ?tting, alteration cost
0361-3682/03/$ - see front matter # 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PI I : S0361- 3682( 02) 00021- 1
Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 357–377
www.elsevier.com/locate/aos
* Tel.: +44-131-6508339; fax: +44-131-6508337.
E-mail address: [email protected] (I. Jeacle).
and standard clothes sizing permeated the bound-
aries of accounting practice. In 1926 a speaker at
the annual Controllers Congress of the (US)
National Retail Dry Goods Association (NRDGA)
(Libbey, 1926) addressed these same issues. This
was an annual meeting of US department store
controllers (accountants). These controllers pre-
sided over the ?nancial position of some of the
largest organizational forms of the era. The 1926
address highlighted the ‘problem’ of a rising store
overhead, the garment alteration cost, and the
lack of any accounting control over it. New
accounting techniques drawn from the lessons of
scienti?c management on the manufacturing ?oor
emerged as a solution to the crisis. Time and
motion studies in the store workroom, rigorous
checking of garment sizing in the receiving room,
and allocation of alteration overheads to depart-
ments based on usage of the garment workroom,
were proposed and implemented. The notion of
tracing overheads to their underlying causes was a
novel one in the 1920s department store; it lay
beyond or at the extreme edges of the margins of
accounting technique. Yet, it is interesting that by
the end of that century, it had echoes in current
activity based costing advocacy.
The paper seeks to probe the process by which
these accounting innovations in the garment
alteration workrooms of the department store
became implicated in the construction of the stan-
dard body. Drawing on archival material from US
and UK department stores, minutes of meetings of
the Controllers Congress of the NRDGA, and
published literature of the era (1920s/1930s) the
paper explores the role of accounting technique in
the advancement of the standards which have
completely in?ltrated today’s garment industry.
Accounting came to provide management with the
control to more directly in?uence the manu-
facturer’s supply of adequately ?tting garments
and simultaneously the departmental buyer’s sup-
port of such new modes of sizing. Accounting
technique therefore, is intimately bound up in the
support of the sizing standards which have
become so ?rmly integrated within contemporary
consumer society. The paper argues that the trans-
formation in accounting practice, that accom-
panied the problematization of rising alteration
costs, forged a temporarily stabilized assemblage
of diverse actors with one common goal: the con-
struction of a technology of the body. Accounting
technique bolstered a network of self calculating
interests to become aligned, culminating in the
continuous re?nement of a system of standard
sizing.
The case is also illustrative of the power of
accounting control systems more generally. Pro-
cesses of accountability can extend through an
actor network to in?uence broad scale practices.
The simplest of accounting techniques can create
the visibilities to energise a mobilisation of forces.
The construction of a technology of the body,
examined here, is only one example of how
accounting acts as a medium through which
diverse assemblages align in the construction of
technologies generally.
The paper is structured in the following manner.
Following an examination of the theoretical
underpinnings of the work, a sociology of trans-
lation, the paper is subsequently structured in a
manner which recognises the richness of con-
textualisation. The importance of studying
accounting practice within its social and organi-
zational context is well established (Hopwood,
1983). Societal trends in?uence organizations and
therefore interact with accounting. Accounting in
turn can stimulate organizational change that can
profoundly a?ect social discourses. Accounting is
as intrinsic a part of everyday life (Hopwood,
1994) as consumer society is a pervasive element
of that everyday life in the Western world. The
paper takes Western consumer society as its con-
text. The story commences with a recognition of
the increasingly signi?cant role which the body
has come to occupy in popular Western consumer
society. The complex relationships between the
body, individualism and the clothing commodity,
in particular, are highlighted. This leads to an
exploration of the nuances encapsulated within
the seemingly neutral, objective and statistically
constructed system of standardized clothing sizes.
Against this contextual backdrop, the paper
locates the advancement and re?nement of the
statistical standard size within the garment altera-
tion workrooms of the department store.
Accounting innovation spun a web entangling the
358 I. Jeacle / Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 357–377
garment manufacturer, departmental buyer and
store controller. The paper unravels these new
workroom controls and reveals the powerful
incentives they created for the construction of a
technology of the body.
2. Translation
The theory of translation derives from the work
of writers within the sociology of science. Callon
(1986, 1991) and Latour (1986, 1987, 1991) have
contributed a signi?cant body of work on the
subject. These writers have sought to understand
the processes underlying the fabrication of scien-
ti?c fact. In other words, how did the black box
(Latour, 1987) come into being? What are the
means by which a given scienti?c fact or technol-
ogy achieves an inherent legitimacy as perceived
solution to a problem. They address these issues
with recourse to the sociology of translation.
The translation model is concerned with meth-
ods of association, the processes by which diverse
actors, claims and institutions weave themselves
together to form a convergent network.
A successful process of translation thus gen-
erates a shared space, equivalence and com-
mensurability. It aligns (Callon, 1991, p. 145).
The network, so formed, can draw upon and
mobilise all the resources within the network
toward a common direction. It embraces and
translates divergent and heterogeneous parties in
its pursuit of a shared goal. Through a process of
translation, a machination of forces is assembled
(Latour, 1987, p. 128):
The simplest means of transforming the jux-
aposed set of allies into a whole that acts as
one is to tie the assembled forces to one
another, that is, to build a machine.
It is in such a manner, suggest Callon and
Latour, that scienti?c knowledge pronouncements
become stable and credible.
In recent years a number of accounting scholars
have usefully employed the theory of translation.
Early adopters such as Miller (1991), Preston,
Cooper, and Coombs (1992) and Robson (1991,
1992) have been followed by Chua (1995) and
Briers and Chua (2001). The sociology of trans-
lation o?ers some helpful insights in seeking to
understand accounting innovation. As Robson
(1991, p. 550) observes, the technical properties of
accounting impart on it a perceived objectivity
similar to that conferred on scienti?c rigour. Yet
both practices are infused by their social environ-
ment. Essentially, Callon and Latour have inves-
tigated, albeit within a di?erent arena, those same
issues that have concerned many within the
accounting academia: the social context of [account-
ing] change. Adapting the translation model to the
study of accounting innovation facilitates an
understanding of the process by which new calcu-
lative technologies create linkages with broader
social discourses.
In the context of this study, the paper argues that
a translatability was created between the employ-
ment of various workroom accounting inno-
vations, such as overhead allocation, and the
concept of standardized sizing (the perceived solu-
tion to the problem of poorly ?tting garments). The
paper employs Callon’s (1986) four moments of
translation (problematization, interessement, enrol-
ment and mobilization) as its conceptual framework.
The following two sections of the paper, a con-
sideration of the signi?cance of clothing within
Western consumer society and the relationship
between clothing and the statistical standard size,
set the backdrop to the subsequent discussion.
3. The consuming body (Falk, 1994)
Where once the body and the individual were
regarded as separate entities, modernity has wit-
nessed their uni?cation (Turner, 1994). The notion
that the body can express individuality and vice
versa has now become ?rmly established (Shilling,
1993; Varela, 1995). One arena in which the
body’s expression of individuality is perhaps most
evident is within consumer society (Sulkunen,
1997). The ‘‘appropriation of the body and trans-
formation of feelings and images into commodi?ed
signs of self’’ (Langman, 1992, p. 61) is at the
I. Jeacle / Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 357–377 359
heart of contemporary consumer society. The
consumer, it is argued, is manipulated into pur-
chasing an in?nite array of bodily commodities in
the construction of individuality (Joy & Venka-
tesh, 1994; O’Neill, 1978; Freund, 1982). As Bau-
man (1983, p. 41) aptly remarks:
. . . real problems people experience in their
life-in-society tend to be well-nigh auto-
matically, though not without eager assis-
tance of the advertising media, translated into
the need of possessing some purchasable tools
of bodily training, bodily adornments or
other goods de?ned ?rst and foremost as
extensions of, or adjuncts to, the body.
One commodity of bodily adornment which
holds a central role within consumer society is
clothing. Alongside such bodily arti?ces as cos-
metics and jewellery, clothing is a signi?cant com-
ponent in the consumer market’s leverage over the
body.
It is not intended here to explore the relation-
ship between clothing and theories of fashion,
such as Veblen’s (1899) theory of conspicuous
consumption or Simmel’s (1957) trickle down the-
ory. Rather of interest is the relationship between
clothing, as one form of bodily commodity, and
the construction of individuality. Clothing is a
medium through which one can proclaim a sense
of self to the rest of society (Calefato, 1988; Fin-
kelstein, 1991; Lurie, 1992; Stone, 1962). As Gid-
dens (1991, p. 62) argues: ‘‘dress is vastly more
than simply a means of bodily protection: it is,
manifestly, a means of symbolic display, a way of
giving external form to narratives of self-identity’’.
How and when did clothing become ‘‘a key to
the modern consumer’s sense of identity’’ (Craik,
1994, p. 206)? Sennett (1976, p. 65) describes a
period in history in which clothing incorporated
no such re?ection of the self. Bodily appearance
was an expression of social status rather than
individual character. With increasing indus-
trialisation and the mass production of clothing,
the nineteenth century was to see a greater uni-
formity of dress amongst the populace. A con-
sequence of this was a movement away from
reading the social status of the individual from his
clothes toward an appraisal of his personal char-
acter from them (Corrigan, 1997; Featherstone,
1991; Sennett, 1976). Sennett (1976) argues that
the department store played a crucial role in this
transition with its o?erings of inexpensive ready-
to-wear fashions. Kidwell and Christman (1974) in
their history of American clothing, also emphasise
the importance of ready-to-wear in the ‘‘democra-
tization of clothing’’ (p. 15). The department
stores of the late nineteenth century they argue,
‘‘were to make ‘equal’ dress accessible to every-
body’’ (p. 155). A similar point is made by Pas-
dermadjian (1954, p. 124/125) when he assesses
the social implications of the department store in
reducing class di?erentiations. The combination
of mass production (via the power loom, the cut-
ting and in particular the sewing machine
(Adburgham, 1964, p. 128)) and mass distribution
(the department stores) guaranteed the availability
of cheap ready-to-wear styles which in turn
ensured that for the ?rst time, the mass population
could be similarly clothed regardless of social sta-
tus. Whilst initially ‘‘it was still considered not
quite the thing to buy ready-mades’’ (Waugh,
1968, p. 265) this perception has albeit dis-
appeared. Ready-to-wear clothing has come to
occupy a central role in Western consumer society
and acts as an important medium of bodily
adornment through which individuality can be
easily expressed. However, the ultimate success of
ready-to-wear clothing, it can be argued, was
based on its adoption of an e?cient system of
standard sizing. A system of standard sizing, in
turn, centred around the construction of the stan-
dard body.
4. The standard body
An even older institution than either the cloth-
ing manufacturer or department store which had
an interest in the development of standard sizing
was the army (Green, 1997). The adequate cloth-
ing of the nation’s armed forces was an obvious
concern for any administration. In the US, the
Quartermaster Corps was the division with respon-
sibility to clothe, either through purchase or manu-
facture, its servicemen (Haggard, 1956, p. 138).
360 I. Jeacle / Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 357–377
Established in 1812, it was one of the ?rst clothing
manufactories in the US (Kidwell & Christman,
1974, p. 47). With its ready supply of disciplined
bodies available for statistical analysis by its
Research and Development Command, the Quar-
termaster Corps was perfectly situated to generate
a system of standardized clothing sizes (Haggard,
1956). Three main size classi?cations were con-
structed: the normal, semi-stout and full stout.
Any special manufacture of uniforms to cater for
those individuals lying outside the ‘normal’ sizing
ranges had an interesting consequence. A letter,
reproduced in Haggard (footnote 69, p. 133), from
Brigadier General W. A. McCain to the Quarter
Master General, dated 19 May 1941, issues rather
harsh treatment for these deviants:
Past experience has repeatedly demonstrated
that special measurement clothing is very dif-
?cult and expensive to procure–A soldier
without shoes, socks, or other essential items
of clothing is no less of a casualty than one
wounded in action or disabled by disease.
Beds and mattresses are only 78
00
in length
and cannot comfortably accommodate a man
over 6
0
4
00
tall. The present schedule of sizes
should not be enlarged because they already
cover such a wide range of sizes as to com-
plicate procurement and supply. Recommend
that the necessary steps be taken to change
physical standards for enlistment or induction
to preclude acceptance of men who do not
fall within the following measurements: . . .
[list of body measurements] . . . Recommend
further that men now in the service whose
measurements do not fall within the above
limit be either discharged or declared ineligi-
ble for duty outside the continental limits of
the United-States. (Emphasis added.)
The mass manufacturer of ready-to-wear cloth-
ing faced a similar challenge to the armed forces in
that he also produced for an unknown population.
Unlike the army administration, however, he
could not so easily dismiss a potentially pro?table
customer base. ‘‘The manufacture of clothing for a
mass market presupposed standardized patterns
designed to ?t a certain number of body sizes’’
(Kidwell & Christman, 1974, p. 101). There were
no doubt exceptions to this rule. Adburgham
(1964, p. 125) recounts a fascinating tale of how
one UK store (Jay’s) had, as early as 1866,
‘‘devised an ingenious method of overcoming
deviations from the female norm without having
to stock dresses in many di?erent measurements’’.
The advertisements for a range of their ready-
made dresses carried the caption:
Jay’s Patent Euthemia, a self-expanding bodice,
recommended to ladies in case of sudden bereave-
ment or any less painful emergency, when a ready-
made stylish dress is required at a moment’s notice
(Ibid.).
In general however, standardized sizing pro-
vided the means by which the manufacturer could
act at a distance (Latour, 1987, p. 223) on the
consumer market. Douglas’ (1973, p. 81) proposi-
tion on the necessary requirement for e?ective
communication between individuals is also
insightful here:
We can concentrate, it seems, upon the inter-
action of individuals within two social
dimensions. One is order, classi?cation, the
symbolic system. . . . Social relations demand
that categories be clari?ed and orientations
given. Order is the basic requirement for
communication.
Commenting on her work, Turner (1991, p. 5)
remarks:
The principle response to disorder is sys-
tematic classi?cation: the creation of ordered
categories which both explain disorder and
restore order. The principle medium of clas-
si?cation has been historically the human
body itself.
Viewed in this light, a system of standard sizing
provided a useful medium of bodily communi-
cation between manufacturer and ultimate con-
sumer. As a report by the UK Board of Trade
(1957, p. 9) observed:
What is required is a method by which the
population can be divided into a number of
I. Jeacle / Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 357–377 361
separate sizes, so that garments may be made
for each of these sizes, or at least for the more
important ones . . . these sizes or ?gure types
may be considered as the basic elements in the
population instead of individual persons.
(Emphasis added.)
Standard sizing then, instantly associates the
physical dimensions of the body with a number on
a measurement scale. This single number labels the
individual; it provides society with a perception of
the human form. ‘‘The social body constrains the
way the physical body is perceived’’ (Douglas,
1973, p. 93). As Giddens (1991, p. 172) observes:
‘‘all of us, in modern social conditions, live as
though surrounded by mirrors; in these we search
for the appearance of an unblemished, socially
valued self’’. Similarly, Ma?esoli (1997, p. 36)
remarks: ‘‘A body is not capable of constituting
identity unless it is situated in the social world’’.
With standard sizing, the diverse and unique
properties of each human form are replaced with a
standardized scale categorizing the population.
Mundane techniques of measurement, recording
and statistical calculation create ‘‘new categories
of people’’ (Hacking, 1986, p. 223). Rose (1988,
p. 189):
The sciences of individualization take o?
from these routine techniques of recording,
utilizing them, transforming them into sys-
tematic devices for the inscription of identity,
techniques which can transform the proper-
ties, capacities, energies of the human soul
into material form— pictures, charts, dia-
grams, measurements.
Once constructed, a system of standardized siz-
ing adopts a disciplinary dimension (Foucault,
1977). A statistical mark becomes the norm
around which all other bodily types must deviate.
1
It is important to recognise that the ‘norm’ is not
necessarily a static phenomenon. The body image
is in a constant state of ?ux (Schilder, 1964,
p. 204). The ‘‘ideal of thinness’’ which preoccupies
21st century Western women, when contrasted
with the ‘‘plump’’ bodies portrayed by Titian and
Renoir is evidence of such ?ux (Polhemus, 1978,
p. 22). However, within any time period, one per-
ception of the ‘normal’ or ‘ideal’ ?gure is all per-
vasive (Johnson, 1983, p. 88). Deviance from this
norm carries harsh penalties. As Joy and Venka-
tesh (1994, p. 337) remark, the body is ‘‘loathed if
it does not meet the aesthetic norms of commodity
culture’’. Kissling (1991, p. 136) also remarks:
‘‘The woman who fails to conform is told impli-
citly (and often directly) that she is somehow
defective and that her body size is under her con-
trol: She must diet’’. Similarly, Benson (1997, p. 123)
observes ‘‘The bad body is fat, slack, uncared for;
it demonstrates a lazy and undisciplined ‘self’’’. In
contrast, ‘‘The good body is sleek, thin and toned.
To have such a body is to project to those around
you—as well as to yourself—that you are morally
as well as physically ‘in shape’’ (ibid.). In fact,
‘‘Being taught to conform our bodies to ideal
shapes is a basic element in learning how to
become good citizens’’ (Johnson, 1983, p. 104). It
is obvious that powerful disciplinary tools operate
to ensure conformity with established norms. As
Foucault (1980, p. 57) aptly observes ‘‘we ?nd a
new mode of investment which presents itself no
longer in the form of control by repression but
that of control by stimulation. Get undressed-but
be slim, good looking, and tanned!’’. Indeed,
argues Bordo (1993, p. 186), preoccupation with
body shape
. . . may function as one of the most powerful
normalizing mechanisms of our century,
insuring the production of self-monitoring
and self-discipling ‘docile bodies’ sensitive to
any departure from social norms and habi-
tuated to self-improvement and self-transfor-
mation in the service of those norms.
The continued service of those norms is of course
in the interest of both retailer and manufacturer.
Pro?ts are maximised by catering primarily for the
1
Two observations are insightful here. First, the Marks &
Spencer retail store produce trouser and skirt lengths in a
‘‘standard’’ size. The other two ?ttings ‘‘short’’ and ‘‘long’’
consequently carry the implication of being in some way non-
standard: abnormal. Second, the advent of specialized shops
catering to the outsize, petite or tall of stature help maintain the
perception of deviance.
362 I. Jeacle / Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 357–377
‘normal’ ?gure which in turn provides the incen-
tive for sustaining these norms. Corrigan (1997,
p.64) argues that in this way standard sizing has
reversed ‘‘the ‘natural’ order of things’’.
By ‘natural’ order of things I mean the ten-
dency to go to a shop to try and ?nd clothes
that ?t one’s body. Here, clothing is made
subordinate to the demands of the body. But
if the store manages to create a stylized
image, an abstract model of a standard
female body, then the body must be made to
?t the clothes that the store makes available.
Here, the body is made subordinate to an
abstract model that stands outside it and is
shaped by marketing. No longer does the store
have to cope with the (for it) distressing irre-
gularities of female bodies coming in all shapes
and sizes, for now the projected image will
appear as the only sort of body that women
are supposed to have, and some will no doubt
strive to attain that sort of stanardized body,
unreal though it may seemto women composed
of ?esh and blood rather than easily mouldable
plastic. Standard sized and shaped bodies come
to ?t the standard sizes and shapes provided by
mass manufacture–more pro?ts can be made
from these sorts of bodies than any other.
Ready-made clothing demands ready-made
bodies. (Emphasis added.)
It appears then that an apparently simple statis-
tical classi?catory system has come to incorporate
a range of nuances in contemporary Western
society far beyond its original application.
Assuming the importance of its role in the modern
individual’s perception of self is accepted, then the
history of the development of standard sizing is a
worthy topic of consideration.
5. Problematization: ready-to-wear and the
dilemma of alteration costs
Ready-to-wear garments attempted to o?er cus-
tomers convenience and a?ordability. However,
without an adequate system of standardized sizing
in operation, the necessary alterations to these
garments, to achieve correct ?tting, was a persis-
tent problem. Retailers such as the US mail order
store, Sears, faced a particular challenge in the sale
of ready-to-wear garments. Given the nature of
mail order trade it was impossible for a customer
to try on a garment for size before the purchase
transaction (Craik, 1994; Emmet & Jeuck, 1950).
The results of Army initiatives into the construc-
tion of standard sizes were ultimately made avail-
able to the US civilian clothing industry (Kidwell
& Christman, 1974, p. 105).
2
However, such army
clothing measurements were generally inadequate,
prompting the clothing industry to develop its
own standards ‘‘by a process of trial and error’’
(Kidwell & Christman, 1974, p. 105). O’Brien and
Shelton (1941, p. 1) capture the extent of these ad
hoc initiatives in their review of the US women’s
garment industry during the early years of the
twentieth century:
The measurements used have grown up in the
industry, apparently chie?y by trial and error,
based on measurements taken on a few
women by various inaccurate procedures. As
a result, there are no standards for garment
sizes, and retailers and customers are sub-
jected to unnecessary expense and harassed
by the di?culties involved in obtaining prop-
erly ?tting clothing.
The problem of rising alteration overheads is
captured in the minutes of the 1929 Controllers
Congress of the National Retail Dry Goods Asso-
ciation (NRDGA). Addressing the meeting, Abbott
(1929, p. 181), head of the Bureau of Standards in
Filene’s department store (Boston), reports:
Ready-to-wear departments meet increased
sales resistance if the average customer can-
not be ?tted reasonably well without altera-
tion. How many customers leave the store
without buying in the hope that they can ?nd
something elsewhere which will not need
2
Similar cooperation is in evidence on the opposite side of
the Atlantic. A letter from the UK War O?ce to the research
department of the John Lewis department store (dated 1946)
provides the latter with statistical data on the sizing of women’s
army jackets (John Lewis Partnership archives, ref. 2768/cii).
I. Jeacle / Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 357–377 363
alteration? The customer’s dislike of that
additional charge is greater than ours.
Alteration costs were also a serious concern of
store management on the opposite side of the
Atlantic. In a 1935 study of British stores, ‘‘in the
interests of better making and retailing of ready-
mades’’, the UK model manufacturers Siegel and
Stockman, identi?ed the main causes of high
alteration costs.
3
The report lay the blame both
with the manufacturer who produced poorly ?t-
ting garments and with the store buyer who
incurred unnecessary alteration costs through the
holding of inadequate stocks or the purchase of
cheap but badly manufactured garments.
The problematization of the issue of poor ?tting
garments and the associated alteration costs
represented the ?rst stage in the translation pro-
cess. In raising the issue and providing quanti?-
able evidence, in the form of rising alteration
costs, store controllers positioned themselves as
central and indispensable actors within the net-
work which subsequently emerged. ‘‘This double
movement, which renders them indispensable in
the network, is what we call problematization’’
(Callon, 1986, p. 204).
6. The devices of interessement
The second moment in the translation process is
interessement. Callon (1986, pp. 207–210):
Interessement is the group of actions by
which an entity . . . attempts to impose and
stabilize the identity of the other actors it
de?nes through its problematization. Di?er-
ent devices are used to implement these actions
. . . The interessement, if successful, con?rms
(more or less completely) the validity of the
problematization and the alliance it implies.
Attempts by store management to solve the
problem of unnecessary and costly alterations
centred around the introduction of a number of
new control procedures or interessement devices.
Control over workroom operations, the site of
garment alteration, became synonymous with
control over alteration costs. Evidence suggests
that management implemented new accounting
procedures to analyse and determine the responsi-
bility for the alteration workroom overhead.
Through control over this overhead, the actions of
the external manufacturer and in-house depart-
ment buyer, in relation to garment sizing, ulti-
mately became visible to management. In such a
manner, the controllers identi?ed these two fur-
ther parties to the problematization of garment
sizing and, through an array of accounting devi-
ces, tied them ?rmly to it.
Evidence that workroom accounting controls
were non-existent before this point is suggested in
an address by Libbey (1926, p. 53–54) to the
Controllers Congress of the NRDGA on the topic
of Workroom Methods and Control:
I am going to speak to you brie?y and bluntly
on what might well be termed, ‘The Con-
trollers’ Curse,’ or in other words, retail store
workrooms . . . these unpro?table, unwanted,
illegitimate and fatherless o?spring’s of an
otherwise respectable retail industry . . . There
is enough money wasted in the unsupervised
workrooms of the average large retail store to
support Peggy Joyce. And the remedy is in
the hands of the controller. Those of you who
believe the remedy of the situation is within
the jurisdiction of the controller could prob-
ably be counted on the ?ngers of the right
hand of an armless man. What can the con-
troller do? The answer is simple. Take the
mystery out of workroom ?gures.
The following two sections reveal the workings of
the interessement devices in entangling the actions
of garment manufacturer and departmental buyer.
6.1. Unravelling the threads of workroom
accounting: the manufacturer and alteration cost
Although a system of standardized sizing was, no
doubt, in the interest of garment manufacturers,
3
Report on census taken by Siegel and Stockman, London,
the manufacturers of Stockman Busts, in the interests of better
making and retailing of readymades. John Lewis Partnership
archives, ref. 2768/c(ii).
364 I. Jeacle / Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 357–377
‘‘as mass production does not permit the making
on an economic basis of single garments in special
sizes’’ (Wray, 1957, p. 165), it appears that this
grouping was slow to innovate. For example, a
member of Filene’s (Boston department store)
Bureau of Standards revealed her experiences with
local manufacturers as follows:
Size tickets at that time [1925] meant very lit-
tle. It was fairly common practice to cut two
sizes alike in the early development of the low
priced silk dresses. When we began working
with our local resources to correct this, one
manufacturer who was called in to see the
discrepancies in his sizes (36 and 38 alike, 40
and 42 alike), said, ‘Well, I got away with it
for eight years’ (Abbott, 1929, p. 181).
New management initiatives now targeted this
previously unexplored ?eld of alteration work-
room operations. To establish the manufacturer’s
share of the workroom cost, due to the supply of
poorly ?tting garments, US national retail associ-
ations, such as the Men’s and Boy’s Wear Group
of the NRDGA Merchandising Division (1950,
p. 11) encouraged store management to identify
and record alteration costs per supplier. Similarly,
an employee of a UK department store, on
returning from America following an inspection
of US retail practice in 1938, recommended to
management:
. . . that a careful record of alterations for
customers with the unit cost of each be kept
for the next season or two . . . showing the
percentage to garments supplied of altera-
tions that each supplier causes and the aver-
age cost of each supplier’s alterations.
4
In addition to monitoring alteration cost per
supplier, steps were taken to pre-empt the need for
such alterations in the ?rst place. In the receiving
room procedures were implemented to check
incoming suppliers stock for exact ?t against store
dummies. Faulty sized garments were returned
and a record kept of all such rejections. Evidence
of these new controls is widespread. Addressing
the 1926 Controllers Congress of the NRDGA, a
member of Filene’s department store (Boston),
recounts the operations of its receiving room to
the attending delegates:
In our receiving room we have about forty
dressmaking dummy forms. They are made
by a master of the details of the human ?gure
and the problem of where a woman’s waist-
line happens to be in any particular season . . .
Our examiners drape dresses, waists, coats,
and all the other garments over these forms.
Our returned goods department in the last
few months, has been the busiest spot in
North America shooting back rejected stu?
. . . Our saving in the workroom has been so
incredible that I hesitate to try to give you a
full picture of what is being done. Our
alteration room, and you know we sell a few
dresses in Filene’s, is so small that the work-
room head of a department store who is
represented here, came in there and thought
our entire women’s workroom was merely
one section (Libbey, 1926, p. 54).
Another division of that Association, the Men’s
and Boy’s Wear Group (1950, p. 4) advised:
Critical inspection of merchandise as it is
received from the manufacturer, and the
return of faulty garments, provides another
method of controlling alterations at the start-
ing point. Furthermore, the merchandise from
certain manufacturers is less inclined to require
alteration than that from others. An analysis
of alterations by manufacturer is just as
important to the department’s pro?table oper-
ation, as is a similar analysis of markdowns.
The recommendations of the John Lewis depart-
ment store inspector returned from a study of US
retail practices in 1938, included a recommendation:
. . . that we purchase a complete set of Bau-
man English forms [models/dummies] for
each size that we decide to stock . . . and try
on at least one of each delivery of each size
4
John Lewis Partnership archives, ref. 250/1.
I. Jeacle / Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 357–377 365
from each make on these . . . [and that a]
record of rejections be chalked up in the
receiving room against each supplier.
5
Studies by interested parties on both sides of the
Atlantic urged the adoption of rigorous controls
in the receiving room. A 1935 study by UK model
manufacturers Siegel and Stockman, reports that:
. . . very often garments are not examined
carefully when received by Retailers. Flaws in
material, bad hems, etc., bad balance, often
come to light only when the garment has been
sold and goes to the alteration room for some
slight alteration. The remedy lies in the
Retailer’s hands; better inspection at recep-
tion of goods.
6
In the US a study of workroom operations by
the Store Management Group of the NRDGA
posed the question to retailers:
Do you examine incoming merchandise and
return defective pieces to manufacturers, or is
your store a ‘dumping ground’ for merchan-
dise rejected by more alert retailers? (Store
Management Group, 1949, p.1).
6.2. Unravelling the threads of workroom
accounting: the buyer and alteration cost
The manufacturer however, was not exclusively
to blame for excessive store alteration costs. The
actions of the selling department, ultimately the
responsibility of the department buyer, could pro-
duce unnecessary alterations due to holding an
inadequate stock range, selling customers the
incorrect size and purchasing cheap but badly ?t-
ting garments. To establish the responsibility of
the relevant selling departments, a workroom
alteration overhead was calculated. The proration
of this overhead amongst departments was to be
based on the extent of usage of the services of the
alteration workroom.
A department might have used only 1% of
the activities of the alteration room. At the
end of the month it would be charged with an
adjustment of only 1% of the total pro?t or
loss. The head of the alteration room knows
where she stands. The buyers know where
they stand (Libbey, 1926, p. 56).
Libbey’s address to the controller members of
the NRDGA at their 1926 annual congress was the
?rst time that this annual association had discussed
the concept of allocation of the workroom overhead
amongst departments.
7
A decade later, at the 1936
congress, the association presented its ?rst Work-
room Accounting Manual to members. It stated:
The manual accepts the principle that the net
pro?t or loss from operating these work-
rooms (after giving e?ect to income from
customers and direct charges to other depart-
ments) should be distributed to those depart-
ments regularly served by the workroom, to
a?ect their cost of sales (Hart, 1936, p. 88).
Evidence of the debate on the issue arising
between these two dates is suggested in a 1930
textbook entitled: Control of Retail Store Oper-
ations. The authors, Godley and Kaylin, refer to
‘‘a sharp division of opinion’’ (p. 368) in relation
to the topic:
On one hand the point is made that depart-
mental proration is an involved, cumbersome,
analytical process that cannot be justi?ed by
the advantages to be gained, that in fact there
are no advantages to be gained; charge the
departments with the direct expenses and for-
get about departmental indirect distribution,
that school asserts . . . the important thing is the
monthly operating statement for the whole
store, that the trouble of allocating indirect
charges to departments is not compensated for
by the possible gains (Ibid.).
5
John Lewis Partnership archives, ref. 250/1.
6
John Lewis Partnership archives, ref. 2768/c(ii).
7
A reference by Schwoyer (1937) at the 1937 Controllers
Congress identi?ed this date as the ?rst occasion on which
workroom accounting methods were discussed. Review of the
proceedings of the annual congress from inception also con-
?rmed the date.
366 I. Jeacle / Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 357–377
The authors obviously belong to the opposite
school of thought as they continue (p. 369):
The tendency has been in that direction, but it
is a tendency to be deprecated. It is the lazy
way, the easy way, but not the right way. In
the ?rst place, proration need not be cumber-
some or involved or intricate. The fact is that
large slices of expenses–the whole occupancy
group, the cost of the outside delivery, the
cost of operating the personnel department–
are adaptable to allocation to selling depart-
ments through a formula process that is nei-
ther direct nor indirect, but that is equitable,
nevertheless, and almost automatic. Other
indirect expenses do require careful inter-
pretation and do demand intelligence of a
high order in their conversion into depart-
mental proportions, but that fact alone does
not justify a hands-o? policy. The selling
departments are charged immediately with all
their merchandising costs. Why guess at the
expense costs? If expenditures for the store as
a whole are adequate to the needs of each
individual selling department, why not the
merchandising costs of the store as a whole?
Merchandising pro?t does not tell the story of
a department’s e?ectiveness until it is asso-
ciated with the complete expenses the depart-
ment has incurred. Not some expenses, but all
expenses. Of course, the result may not be a
pleasing one, but matters are not improved by
concealing facts.
Before overheads could be charged back to
departments of course, procedures had to be
implemented to ensure all workroom costs were
adequately recorded. The introduction of time and
motion studies within the workroom, and the cal-
culation of a unit job cost, facilitated this process
whilst also ensuring internal e?ciency. The
mechanics of scienti?c management, previously
perfected on the factory ?oor, invaded the gar-
ment alteration workrooms of the department
store. The head of workrooms in one US depart-
ment store outlined his job record system in a 1949
report by the Store Management Group of the
NRDGA (Store Management Group, 1949, p. 17):
[Hoover]: Of course, the basis of our control
is keeping a record of how long it takes to do
the job. I am surprised to ?nd so many
workrooms where absolutely no record is
kept of the job and the workers’ time. Mem-
ber: Do you mean just a spotcheck? Chair-
man Hoover: No, on each job. Many stores
have a place on the back of the alteration
ticket where the worker puts her time. Then
that time is tabulated and the actual cost of
the job is determined and compared with the
price charged. I think that a workroom,
regardless of its size, would be hard to oper-
ate without determining in some way how
much each individual job costs. In other
words, without such a record you are almost
giving your people a blank check to take as
long as they want to on a job, or to get it out
as quickly as they think they should.
Another NRDGA study by the Men’s and Boy’s
Wear Group (1950, pp. 31–32) similarly detailed
the advantages of a unit cost system in the altera-
tion workrooms:
Establishing the number of work-units that
are required for each operation in the work-
room is the ?rst step in setting up a unit cost
system for measuring the e?ciency of the
shop and for charging to the several mer-
chandise departments which it serves. For
ease of ?guring, a basic unit of ten minutes
can be used and work units set up for each
operation. Thus, an operation requiring ten
minutes to perform would be assigned one
work unit, and thus be shown on the shop
card opposite the operation. These work
units, based upon the average experience of
the shop in performing each operation, con-
sequently represent neither best performance
not the poorest, but a standard which every-
one should be able to meet. It is obvious, of
course, that the actual time it will take an
operator to do a certain task will vary some-
what with the pressure or lack of pressure of
work during busy and slack seasons; also to
some extent at least, whether the particular
garment is one in the higher price brackets or
I. Jeacle / Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 357–377 367
bargain store merchandise will have an in?u-
ence. Nevertheless, the work unit system is a
practical measure of an operator’s e?ciency.
Since the time card provides a detailed record
of the time spent on each job, it can easily be
checked to spot the exact operation at fault
when the cost of a job runs too high.
One end result of the new costing systems was
the recording of total workroom costs, a pre-
requisite for the production of month end work-
room operating statements. Accumulating the
costs and revenues to produce a ?nal net pro?t or
loss for the alteration workroom, such a statement
in turn facilitated the proration process. A dis-
tribution of costs back to the selling departments
could only be achieved once management were
provided with this regular information on total
workroom operations.
Once controllers had initiated the process of
unravelling the secrets of workroom operations, it
became obvious that some department buyers had
hidden motives in preserving the mystery intact.
According to Libbey (1926, p. 54), the workroom
overhead had long been used by buyers to hide
their buying errors and keep their own depart-
mental accounts producing a rosy picture:
. . . the Buyers are not at all anxious to have the
truth known because they know they will have
losses charged back to them that are now leak-
ing into indirect loss distribution . . . Let me tell
you a few stories. They are not funny . . . There
was another store where all alterations on
faulty merchandise were made in the altera-
tion room. The buyers used it as a graveyard
to bury their buying blunders and the ?oor-
walkers used it to hide excessive adjustments.
A controller without a sense of propriety so
far overstepped himself as to segregate the
cost of these activities. It revealed the fact
that other stores which had examiners in their
receiving room were rejecting dresses from
certain manufacturers because defective.
These manufacturers were selling them cheap
to a so-called shrewd buyer in this particular
store and his pro?ts seemed big until his
individual alteration expense was segregated.
Similarly, Godley and Kaylin (1930, pp. 370–
371) vigorously defend the proration process as a
key to revealing to management the poorly per-
forming departments. At a minimum, the alloca-
tion of overheads, they argue injects a degree of
equity into departmental comparisons:
The successful department cannot long carry
the burden of the unsuccessful department.
Parasitism has no place in the retail store. Of
course, if it is in the interest of the store pres-
tige to keep the losing department on the
books, that is its privilege. But the store
should know it is a losing department. And it
will not know that until all the charges the
department has incurred have been placed on
the books of that department–not every six
months when it may be too late to remedy
conditions, but immediately, if possible, and
certainly within the month. If a department
has the best space in the store, it must pay the
best rental rate; if a department uses two-
thirds of a warehouse, it must pay for two-
thirds of the cost of maintaining it . . . And so
on for every expense item, small as well as
large. Proration is the very essence of depart-
mental recording technique. It is not the
troublesome process it has been called, but
even if it were, it would nevertheless be justi-
?able procedure . . . in the store where only
direct expenses are allocated, the costs of
operation do not concern the buyer; they are
store charges, not department charges. In
consequence, the thundering buyer gets better
?oor space, better window space, more
expensive packing for his deliveries, while the
less aggressive buyer gets poorer position and
unsatisfactory non-selling service. Does the
bene?ciary pay for the extra treatment he
receives? No. Under the circumstances can it
be known which department is earning rea-
sonable pro?ts and which is not? The condi-
tion is indefensible from any angle. To
support it is to take a step backwards.
An obvious shift in emphasis was emerging.
Rather than play the passive role of accepting
workroom costs as uncontrollable overhead loss,
368 I. Jeacle / Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 357–377
the controller was persuaded to untangle the
intricacies at play and hold the relevant depart-
ment buyer responsible for his appropriate share
of costs. As Nystrom (1925, p. 157) so e?ectively
argues:
This should be the case in all ready-to-wear
departments handling goods that may require
alterations to suit customers. If there is a
department handling such goods in the store,
the buyer for that department should be made
responsible for its e?cient operation. Good
buying presupposes the buying of goods that
will ?t well. Poor buying will result in the
need for more alterations than good buying.
If the buyer is made fully aware of this by
making him and his department stand the loss
due to the expense of alterations, he will buy
more carefully than he might otherwise.
(Emphasis added.)
7. Enrolment
Interessement achieves enrolment if it is suc-
cessful. To describe enrolment is thus to
describe the group of multilateral negotia-
tions, trials of strength and tricks that
accompany the interessements and enable
them to succeed (Callon, 1986, p. 211).
The array of recording devices implemented by
store controllers successfully enrolled the diverse
interests of clothing supplier and departmental
buyer into the actor network. Observation and
recording of supplier deviations from required
store norms presumably acted as a powerful
incentive to manufacturers to constantly ensure
the appropriate sizing of their garments. Knowl-
edge of a store’s monitoring procedures acted as a
powerful impetus for a manufacturer to fully
address the issue of standard sizing. The experi-
ences of Filene’s (Boston department store)
Bureau of Standards are interesting in this regard.
The most constructive part of our work is the
gradual raising of standards of ?tting through
contact with manufacturers and designers;
they are co-operative and relations are cor-
dial. We go to their workrooms or they come
to us. Several large New York manufacturers
have made the trip to Boston. Recently one
hundred dresses were received for an ad. They
?tted very poorly. The ad was cancelled, and
the buyer telephoned that she was returning
the dresses. The next morning the manu-
facturer was in Boston with his designer; his
introduction was, ‘If Filene is returning them,
there’s something wrong, and we want to get
it straight’ (Abbott, 1929, p. 182).
Similarly, the introduction of the seemingly
innocuous accounting technique of overhead pro-
ration disrupted the traditional position of the
buyer, who, for the ?rst time, directly felt the
burden of alteration costs. The buyer held com-
plete control over the buying decision. Faced with
a charge to his department on the basis of usage of
the alteration workroom, he was prompted to
reassess his buying criteria. The work of Miller
(1992, pp. 66–67) is insightful here:
Rather than emphasizing attempts to con-
vince and persuade, one might direct atten-
tion to ways in which such practices as
accounting seek to act upon the actions of
individuals constituted as agents capable of
choosing from a range of options. For
accounting seeks to bring the actions of ‘free’
individuals into accord with speci?c objec-
tives by enclosing them within a calculative
regime . . . Why not, in other words, seek to
produce an individual who comes to act as a
self-regulating calculating person, albeit one
located within asymmetrical networks of
in?uence and control?
In an attempt to curtail his overhead allocation,
the buyer was prompted to seek new ways to
address the problem of alteration costs. These
included buying exclusively from manufacturers
who employed standard sizing initiatives in their
garment ?tting whilst simultaneously developing
their own in-house standard sizing systems. Long
before any national study of body measurements,
I. Jeacle / Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 357–377 369
the London store, Harrods, had developed a
‘‘range of models in ?fteen scienti?cally graded
sizes.’’
8
Another UK retailing store, Marks and
Spencer, produced management reports on the
high cost of altering poorly ?tting garments and
designed its own in-house sizing system.
9
In Hol-
land the management of the Bijenkorf department
stores undertook a sizing study in 1947 which
involved measurements of some 5000 women cus-
tomers (Sittig & Freudenthal, 1951). Whilst a
member store of the Paris based International
Association of Department Stores (IADS) repor-
ted in 1953 ‘‘By using the alteration statistics as a
basis, and by extensive check measuring in coop-
eration with factory designers, it has been possible
to work out a length measurement scale which
gives good results.’’ (IADS, 1953, p. 12).
In summary, the introduction of a range of
accounting innovations within the garment altera-
tion workroom successfully enrolled the interests
of these many and diverse actors to become
aligned and associated with the creation of a
standardized sizing system.
8. Mobilization: toward construction of the stan-
dard body
The ?nal stitch in sewing up the history of stan-
dard sizing, the fourth moment of the translation
process, was the mobilization of the actor network
and the formation of the standard body.
These chains of intermediaries which result in
a sole and ultimate spokesman can be descri-
bed as the progressive mobilization of actors
who render the following propositions cred-
ible and indisputable by forming alliances
and acting as a unit of force (Callon, 1986,
p. 216).
Representing the interests of the diverse parties
which constituted the actor network, national
governments commissioned sizing studies to con-
struct national body size statistics. This was an
essential ?nal step in the construction of the stan-
dard body as manufacturer and retailer sizing
initiatives were generally carried out in private. In
fact, a store’s in-house standard sizing system was
often kept a closely guarded secret from competi-
tors.
10
An example of the extent of secrecy which
existed is provided in an internal memo prepared
by an employee of a UK department store, who
had been sent in 1938 to investigate US retail
methods. Reporting his ?ndings to store manage-
ment on a visit to a successful US model maker he
observes: ‘‘[the model maker] keeps his measure-
ments and posture secret and never lets his own
workmen learn his secret’’.
11
However, govern-
ment support for a national survey of body mea-
surements and the publication of its results
converted standard sizing into a public commod-
ity. As the 1957 British national study reports
(Board of Trade, 1957, p. 1):
It was evident that no real progress could be
expected until a scienti?c study had been
made, and that the results of such a study
would ultimately be of bene?t to the industry,
to retailers and to consumers alike.
The British survey followed closely its earlier US
equivalent (O’Brien & Shelton, 1941).
12
The
introduction to the British sizing study commences
with the opening extract from the American study
and notes: ‘‘It is as true of this country today as it
was of the United States in 1941 when these words
were written’’ (Board of Trade, 1957, p. 1). The
strong in?uence of US methods on the British
study is perhaps not surprising. The ready-to-wear
garment industry originated in the US and it was
8
Caption attaching a 1930 photograph of Harrod’s
measurement dummies (Fig. 1). These dummies or models were
used in the construction of standard sized clothes. Fig. 2 shows
a range of models available for purchase from the 1908 Har-
rods General Catalogue. Source: Harrods Archives.
9
Report by M.H. Blinken ‘Size Charts-Dress Measure-
ments’ 1948, Report by A.G.E. Smith ‘Sizing’ 1948. Marks and
Spencer Archives.
10
IADS (1954, p.4), Document No. 561. Also, Report by
M.H. Blinken ‘Size Charts-Dress Measurements’ 1948, para-
graph 3, Marks and Spencer Archives.
11
John Lewis Partnership archives, ref. 250/1.
12
This study was sponsored by the Textile and Clothing
Division of the Bureau of Home Economics, advised by a
Committee of the American Standards Association (Disher,
1947, p. 200).
370 I. Jeacle / Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 357–377
Fig. 1. Harrods ?fteen graduated sized models —1930. Source: Harrods Department Store Archives (London).
I
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not until after the second World War that British
couture felt the full threat of its new rival (Mul-
vagh, 1988, p. 124). Another important factor was
the extent of US assistance to European industries
post WW II. Funding under the Marshall Plan,
for example, enabled the purchase of new machin-
ery within the garment industry (Green, 1997).
Two cooperative ventures which had particular
relevance to the clothing industry are worth not-
ing. In 1947 a British working party visited the US
to study the American heavy clothing industry
(Board of Trade, 1947). In 1948 the newly created
Anglo American Council on Productivity estab-
lished 47 British industry teams which visited the
US over a period of four years (Anglo-American
Council on Productivity, 1952a, p. 9). One of these
Fig. 2. Models for sale from the 1908 Harrods general catalogue. Source: Harrods Department Store Archives (London).
372 I. Jeacle / Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 357–377
teams, the Retailing Productivity team, reported
its admiration of the American system of clothing
sizes (Anglo-American Council on Productivity,
1952b, p. 54):
Perhaps the most important feature of US
practice which seemed to the Team to be an
improvement on British methods was the
more general acceptance of standardised mea-
surements for the various sizes of garments.
The team’s recommendation that a national
association be established in the UK to promote a
standard sizing system was subsequently incorpo-
rated into the British Productivity Council’s own
review of the state of the domestic clothing indus-
try (British Productivity Council, 1953). Initiatives
by individual UK stores also encouraged the
spread of sizing methods similar to those adopted
across the Atlantic. In 1952, before British national
sizing standards were introduced, the John Lewis
department store chain was advertising a range of
women’s wear in ‘‘American fashion sizes’’.
13
The relevance of these national statistics of body
size today, more than 50 years after their original
drafting is of course a controversial issue.
14
Many
stores advertise their own variations on the stan-
dard size in order, they argue, to adapt to a chan-
ging national body shape. The future of this
technology of the body appears to lie in computer
generated body scanning which attaches the indi-
vidual with a unique and de?ning measurement.
9. Conclusions
The body has only just emerged from the mar-
gins of academic debate. With the exception of
Mauss’ (1935) ‘‘techniques of the body’’ and Elias’
(1939) ‘‘civilized body’’, the sociology of the body
has been until recent years a relatively unexplored
?eld of academic research (Shilling, 1993). This is
signi?cant given the apparent obsession with bod-
ily shape and adornment in contemporary Wes-
tern culture (Joy & Venkatesh, 1994; Ma?esoli,
1997), a period in social history in which there has
been a replacement of ‘‘the notion of the body as a
productive agent by the hedonistic body and its
various manifestations’’ (Berthelot, 1986, p. 156).
A possible rational for this past neglect may arise
from the split between the mind and body central
to the philosophy of Rene Descartes, which has
traditionally dominated the social sciences (Corri-
gan, 1997, p. 147; Farnell, 1995, p. 4). However,
the tide has turned and attention to the body as a
subject of scholarly interest within the social sci-
ences is now commonplace (Turner, 1994). The
timing of this surge in interest in the body as a
subject of academic inquiry is signi?cant (Foster,
1995; Outram, 1989). Foucault’s writings on the
body shared time and space with an interest in the
body more generally.
If the body is an expression of the individual
and vice versa then consumer culture sustains such
a linkage with its array of packaged bodies selling
in?nite expressions of individuality. Along with
such accoutrements as hair colour and make-up,
ready-to-wear standard sized clothing is a sig-
ni?cant component of this overall package. Whilst
standardized sizing may be based on a simple sta-
tistical classi?cation scheme its nuances are far
reaching. On a practical level it has been a funda-
mental prerequisite of self service shopping
(NRDGA, 1929, p. 5; Lapick, 1947, p. 38) a
characteristic of contemporary mass retailing. At
its most abstract, it has become intricately bound
up with the individual’s perception of self within
bodily norms. Such perceptions are the life blood
of a consumer society which perpetuates the cycle
by o?ering for sale the achievement of the norm,
or earns its pro?ts by catering for the deviant.
Given it early cradling, in the arms of one of the
dominant retailing institutions of the era, the
power of standard sizing in the governance of the
consumer is not surprising.
This paper has attempted to narrate the role of
accounting in the tangled web of individuals,
standard bodies, customers, manufacturers, gov-
ernments, retailers, buyers, and controllers. Each
13
Copy of advertisement held in John Lewis Partnership
archives, ref. 485.B.
14
In the UK, the results of the recent National Sizing Sur-
vey, using computer generated three dimensional body scan-
ning, will no doubt replace the 1950s classi?catory system. The
launch of a common European standard sizing system is
expected in 2003.
I. Jeacle / Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 357–377 373
of these diverse parties had their own agenda.
However, emerging from the web was a strong
and coherent common goal: the pursuit of a sys-
tem of standardized sizing. A translation of inter-
ests culminated in the creation of a technology of
the body. Accounting technique was intricately
bound up with the formation and subsistence of
this actor network. Whilst, perhaps not occupying
a prominent role at the ?nal stage of mobilization,
accounting was an active element at the pro-
blematization, interessement and enrolment
stages. Accounting legitimized the problem. It
constituted the core of a range of interessement
devices to successfully enrol a range of actors from
divergent domains. The store buyer, for example,
often sought to maximise his own departmental
pro?ts at the expense of the total store overhead.
However, he was faced with an important incen-
tive to implement a system which would reduce
alteration costs when his departmental pro?ts
were a?ected by the accounting technique of
overhead proration. The introduction of this
technique encouraged the buying decision to
become intricately bound up with the support of
standard sizing initiatives. Good buying was per-
ceived as the purchase of adequately ?tting gar-
ments. Overhead proration, once internalized by
buyers, acted as a catalyst in the spread of a stan-
dardized system of clothes measurement. Simi-
larly, the calculation of alteration cost per
supplier, was a strong incentive to the manu-
facturer to improve the ?tting of his garments.
Recording and observing the frequency and costs
(in terms of alteration) of a garment’s deviation
from the store’s model, provided management
with a powerful tool in ensuring the manu-
facturer’s pursuit of the common goal of an e?ec-
tive standard sizing system.
Consequently, accounting made visible the
behaviour of the manufacturer (via calculation of
the alteration cost per supplier) and the buyer (via
alteration cost per department). Return of badly
?tting garments to the manufacturer and an over-
head charge to the department of the wasteful
buyer encouraged self disciplining. Accounting’s
role in creating visibilities and punishing deviants
strengthened the alignment of the actor network.
A self calculating regime encouraged the disparate
interests of several actors to merge. The micro
processes of accounting, small and seemingly
innocuous, spread through the actor network
through a process of translations to construct and
shape the notion of the standard body. Conse-
quently, the paper suggests that accounting played
a role in the consolidation of the position of the
body in contemporary consumer society more
generally.
Reiterating the paper’s opening argument, the
issue of standard sizing and alteration costs may
not immediately appear at the heart of conven-
tional accounting practice. Nevertheless, an
accounting technique altered the behaviour of a
network of diverse actors and in so doing encour-
aged the pursuit of a standardized measurement
system which lies at the core of twenty ?rst cen-
tury perceptions of the human body. The history
of a technology of the body and accounting’s role
in it, is just one example of the way in which
accounting practice can contribute to the broader
issues in everyday life. This is not to attribute
causation to accounting. It is simply to recognise
the wider perspective in which accounting operates
beyond the traditional production arena (for
example, Walker’s (1998) work on household
accounting). To fully appreciate this role, ones
de?nition of accounting must be equally encom-
passing. The ?uidity of accounting technique is
one of its greatest strengths, enabling its inter-
action with all facets of social and organizational
life. The exquisitely technical features of a recent
?nancial reporting pronouncement may contain a
status and authoritative tone to pre-empt even the
merest whisper of its accounting validity. How-
ever, there are other aspects of accounting which
may not always conform to preconceived notions
of what constitutes as accounting. These calcu-
lative practices whilst often occupying the margins
of accounting (Miller, 1998) are nonetheless as
equally powerful as their distant cousins. Lying as
they do at the margins, their interaction with
diverse practices enhances their qualities and
attributes, making them a fascinating study
(Miller, 1998, p. 605). Controversies in accounting
ebb and ?ow. The ?uidity of accounting ensures that
what lies at the margins today may be at the heart of
critical debate tomorrow. Whilst departmental
374 I. Jeacle / Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 357–377
overhead proration was a novel initiative in the
1920s department store, it has moved from the
margins to occupy a central role in current man-
agement accounting discourse. Identifying cost
drivers for overheads is pivotal to activity based
costing systems. However, the case is illustrative
of the role of accounting more generally.
Accounting, acting as a vehicle for self monitoring,
can mobilise forces which shape and reshape
broader social practices. The technology of the body
is merely one example of the in?nite array of calcu-
lative technologies which permeate everyday life.
Acknowledgements
I gratefully acknowledge the guidance of my thesis
advisor Professor Eamonn J. Walsh (University
College Dublin). The paper also greatly bene?ted
from comments and suggestions of two anonymous
reviewers, Falconer Mitchell and Stephen Walker
(University of Edinburgh), and participants at the
Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Accounting
Conference 2000. The ?nancial assistance of the
Royal Irish Academy and the J.F. Kennedy
Memorial Fund is gratefully acknowledged.
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