Abstract
An image of an arcade, the Galerie Colbert, (figure 1.1) from circa 1835 shows an elegant rotunda with a glass roof, fine ironworks, marble panels, and architecturally refined shops. The shops feature windows displaying chandeliers, decorative items, and hats rendered in great detail. Several fashionably dressed couples are walking by. A woman glances at a shop window. Another woman is inside the shop, looking at hats. With one arm raised, she seems captivated by the pretty hats. She can be seen clearly from the outside and becomes part of the shop window display. That she is shown alone conveys the message that a woman can visit shops alone and indulge in the pleasure of looking at and buying items of the latest fashion for herself. Depicted along with consumer products here are a shopper and a potential shopper looking at her. The viewer of this image, in turn, is looking at an inviting scene of consumption. The viewer gains knowledge about arcades and consumer behavior, a piece of knowledge shared with legions of imagined consumers.
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Notes
On July-Monarchy consumer culture see Nicholas Green, The Spectacle of Nature: Landscape and Bourgeois Culture in Nineteenth-Century France (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1990)
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Pierre Gascar, Le Boulevard du crime (Paris: Hachette, 1980), 102.
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© 2009 H. Hazel Hahn
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Hahn, H.H. (2009). Consumption as Urban Pleasure: The Rise of Modern Consumer Culture. In: Scenes of Parisian Modernity. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230101937_2
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