Britain Can Make It

In September 1945, only a month after the end of the war, the Council announced a national exhibition of design "in all the main range of consumer goods"[3] to be held the following year.

Rather than merely show-casing goods on offer, the exhibition, and this display in particular, were a propagandist attempt to highlight the need to update British approaches to product design if manufacturing was to be successful in post-war competition.

This represented two innovations for Britain, indicative of this egalitarian age: the first sleeper for third class rather than first, and also the technical development of fitting two levels into the restricted British loading gauge by the use of a well car.

[6] A popular reaction in the press was to term it, "Britain Can't Have It" as the country was still in the grip of wartime austerity measures and the goods on display were intended for export.

The only real criticisms came from established manufacturers who largely failed to appreciate the exhibition's attempt to emphasise design and who still judged it as a simple shop-window display, of their same pre-war products.