Sign consumption in the 19th century department store: An examination of visual merchandising in the grand emporiums (1846-1900)

Abstract

The department stores of the 19th century continue to fascinate social theorists. This paper will expand on the work of two such theorists, Laermans and Featherstone. Extending Laermans’ and Featherstone’s analysis and applying the early work of Baudrillard, this paper will assert that through the manipulation of visual merchandising, the 19th-century department store’s managers constructed a world of sign consumption where goods were not only consumed for their use- or exchange- value but also were consumed as signs of luxury, exoticism, and excess. By asserting that highly developed forms of sign-consumption existed in the 19th century, this paper challenges the view that symbolic consumption in spaces such as shopping malls is particular to the contemporary or postmodern age.