Designing the Department Store : Display and Retail at the Turn of the Twentieth Century
Author(s): Emily M. Orr
The book builds an original argument for the department store as a significant site of design production, and therefore offers an alternative interpretation to the mainstream focus on consumption within retail history.
Emily M. Orr presents a fresh perspective on the rise of modern urban consumer culture, of which the department store was a key feature. By investigating the production processes of display as well as fascinating information about display-making's tools and technologies, the skills of the displayman and the meaning and context of design decisions which shaped the final visual effect are revealed.
In addition, the book identifies and isolates 'display' as a distinct moment in the life of the commodity, and understands it as an influential channel of mediation in the shopping experience. The assembly and interpretation of a diverse range of previously unexplored primary resources and archives yields fascinating new evidence, showing how display achieved an agency which transformed everyday objects into commodities and made consumers out of passersby.
Review(s):
“In Designing the Department Store, Emily M. Orr reveals how art and commerce developed in tandem throughout the 19th century, in response to the era's World Fairs and the growing influence of design reform. Orr demonstrates the depth of this convergence, and highlights the common roots that department stores and art museums share.” —Glenn Adamson, Senior Scholar at the Yale Center for British Art, USA
ISBN: 9781350054370