Farewell to the Argos catalogue, the book of dreams that democratised playtime

On its first Christmas as an established British retailer in 1973, Argos’ most popular toy was Shrinky Dinks. A craft kit created by two Wisconsin housewives, it included various colours of polystyrene sheets, which could be cut out to make into shapes and animals—heating them up would cause them to expand into malleable playthings. British life at the time—with rising inflation, industrial strife, and Heath’s fraught government—called for such populist craftiness.

The following year, the strategy board game (and family holiday ruiner) Risk triumphed as Britain's top choice from the catalogue. Christmas 1977 saw Star Wars figurines snapped up, while 1981 was dominated by the Rubik’s Cube. Sylvanian Families first debuted at the coveted spot in 1987 and kicked off an era populated by collectable dolls, from the anthropomorphic animals to various career traversing Barbies and Bratz Dolls. The rise of technology saw Tamagotchis (1997), Furbys (2000), and the Xbox (2006) capture kids’ hearts, wishlists, and blue biro circles in the big Argos manual through the winter months.

The race for top toy was bolstered by children’s astute deliberation over the catalogue. Dissecting its pages for gifts became its own kind of play activity, and the book’s arrival in British households was the starting pistol for the holidays. But as 2020 has already proven a year for scuppered schedules, the high street giant last week announced it would cease printing its physical catalogues after 47 years in circulation.

It leaves an impressive legacy as a pop culture touchstone; jokingly dubbed the “laminated book of dreams” by comedian Bill Bailey, Alan Carr famously picked it as his book choice on Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs. At the crest of the 90s, 80 per cent of British homes had a catalogue, and it was Europe's most widely-printed publication. Ten million weighty copies were printed at one annual height, in more UK homes than any other book except the Bible. But last year its circulation had shrunk to three million. Though our buying behaviours have moved past the need for the physical book, public grief has metabolised the collective nostalgia, harking back to the identities we constructed and lives we aspired to with the catalogue as children.

Christmas in 2001, for me, was all about one particular Argos product: the Vtech Secret Safe Diary. After hours of deliberation at the kitchen table through late autumn and winter, I meticulously flipped through the vinyl slab of a book, past patio furniture and floor-to-ceiling stereo set-ups to the toy section—in a way, it’s a bildungsroman in reverse. The catalogue product bio offered a charming three bullet-point description: it was a perfect gift for young writers; it was equipped with a voice-activated password feature to keep your secrets safe, and was available in Pepto Bismol pink.

“BUTTERFLY, BUTTERFLY,” I commanded open the bulky plastic journal, having carefully followed the instructions to set its password, but it would not open. I tried varying pitch, cadence, and inflection, dewinged the word I’d chosen as open sesame. I spoke flatly and robotically; in a taut Northern Irish tone, and a clipped English accent, in case the journal had been sentient in its midlands manufacturer and picked up the local accent before it ended up with me in Belfast. I was forced to concede when my family could no longer stand the polymorphic vocal commandments, and my dad prised it open with a hairpin. Today, Argos’ most modern iteration of the journal in its contemporary catalogue features facial recognition software. Meanwhile in my home, a strangled and distressed “Butterfly! Butterfly!” is still a rallying cry that gets volleyed around, and one we recalled when reminiscing for the demise of the “book of dreams.”

In the same way we may look to the Magna Carta to understand medieval community rule, or the Theologia Platonica for the beginnings of moral philosophy, perceptive scholars of a distant future may traverse the Argos catalogue to demystify the last half century. Shopping catalogues can be important research items, charting social histories, economic fluctuations, and physical evidence for critical junctures in domestic life. “They provide a window onto changing tastes, behaviours, and cultural practices. Through its pages, we see the way in which consumer society has evolved,” says Professor Leigh Sparks, the Deputy Principal of Retail Studies at the University of Stirling.

Sparks owns a copy of every Argos catalogue ever made, now housed in the university’s archive. The spotlighted products highlight seismic moments in wider society, from cultural fads to amorphous gender norms—Stirling’s research points to the introduction of the household security section in the 1998 book that reflected rising crime levels. That same decade saw an expansion of DIY products and flatpack furniture, which parallels the downturn in the trade and construction industry. Progressing gender roles and expectations are reflected in the developing sports section of 1998, which sees more female models present. With globalisation and brand domination, product placement and cultural zeitgeist capturing items grew through the 80s and 90s—“It is noticeable how much product is focused on what we have seen, rather than the inherent utility of the product itself,” Stirling notes, like where children’s bedding begins to feature Star Wars scenes and Teletubbies.

Amid this, the Argos catalogue bridged a strange gulf between capitalist dogma, social identity, and children’s growing imagination for play, maintaining an equipoise for which they could imagine worlds they wished to build for themselves. The book was a piece of children’s literature itself—a symbiotic, creative, and importantly, child-quieting activity. Social class is implicit to surveying the book, with its budget-friendly jewellery and homeware selection. For poorer children, the act of marking out a multi-story climbing frame or Kylo Ren Deluxe Electronic Lightsaber was a thrilling ritual, and if nothing else, cathartic. A child in a capital city could dream of camping holidays decked out with all the gear, while another was mapping journeys in coveted yellow rollerskates for concrete city bowls.

“It was surely a democratising document,” adds Stirling. “The book was ubiquitous, every household could participate on some level with differentiating economic access. As globalisation came in, particularly in the 80s, which saw the proliferation of non-British brands and imports, prices fell and choice blossomed. Argos’ widening supply chain gave British families the luxury of choice like never before.”

You could say it was a training ground for the shopping habits of adult millennials today, inclined to covet homes they can’t ever afford on heavily-filtered Zoopla searches and infinite-scroll Instagram feeds. The “book of dreams” for Tom Lawton, a product designer and inventor from Wiltshire, facilitated his own in adulthood. Lawton’s final year university design project, a personalised recordable alarm clock called WakeYoo, was picked up by Argos in 1997. The contract helped him secure a wider manufacturing and licensing deal. “I wanted to wake people up with a smile, for people to use their imaginations that go beyond the alarm clock,” he says. “We pitched it to Argos and the success justified mass production, because the catalogues were so huge—you have to remember we had no Amazon or Google.

“Argos celebrated new ideas, and getting that physical seal of approval that I could leaf through in a shopping centre or my gran could see from her kitchen table in Wolverhampton, it was fantastic. I’ll always have that—I’d pursue the Kickstarter path with products today, of course,” Lawton adds. The WakeYoo gained a celebrity fan in Terry Wogan, who recorded his voice on multiple devices, and auctioned them for Children In Need, making around £350 for each unit. It sold over four million units across its shelf life. “That was my first big success,” says Lawton. “It’s so tied up in various life stages and nostalgia—I remember age 11 buying my girlfriend a £4 Elizabeth Duke ring from the book.”

“As much as it’s a social history, it’s a hook for memories and conversation,” adds Professor Stirling. “Every working class kid has a relationship with the Argos catalogue,” says Twitter user @judeinlondon2. “For me, the Argos catalogue was a window into a life I only saw on TV.” This sparked a long thread of people sharing their own fond memories of it, the scrapbooks it filled, and fantasies it inspired. As the Argos catalogue came of age, so did consumption as a form of self-expression and identity. Maybe with its departure, and a youth more defiant in how they identify themselves by their politics rather than what they consume, this will dissipate too. We’re happy to close the book on old habits, but not so much the chance to reminisce—we mourn the trampoline moon boots we never received, the password-locked journals that we did, and generations of annotations imbued with child-like optimism.