Acknowledgements

Many more thanks are owed than offered here, where they are addressed only to three women whose help has been invaluable in the writing of this dissertation:

Sylvie Piva, Archivist at Solvay, who took a personal interest in my research question and its ‘fashion’ angle. Thank you for the many hours you spent scouring the depths of the Rhone-Poulenc archive at Besancon with me, as we tried to unearth information relating to Brazil.

Maria Claudia Bonadio, without whose work on ‘Rhodia’, there would have been no basis for my own study. Thank you for being such a generous correspondent.

Louise Purbrick, my endlessly encouraging and affirming tutor. Thank you for intervening just in time to save my study from a ‘detective novel’ structure.