Cryséde Silks provided much-needed employment for many local women in West Cornwall during the difficult 1920s and 1930s. They worked as dressmakers and shop assistants and, when required, as models. Here a group wears garments in different fabric designs with more in the background in the company's Island Works St Ives (c1927, Royal Cornwall Museum collection). Second left is Phyllis Hicks, later manageress of the St Ives shop, who was married to Tom Firth, chief dyer.