Anne Norton Signs Of Shopping Summary

559 Words2 Pages

Buying an Identity: A Summary of Anne Norton’s “The Signs of Shopping” Shopping is an important part of American culture. Anne Norton outlines this in her essay “Signs of Shopping.” In a country in which people seek to be as unique as possible, Norton points out that people shop to find identities; she explains this by stating certain clothes carry an identity, women tend to be a bigger part of the American shopping culture, and that shopping from home still has the same effects as shopping at the mall. Norton explains that by buying clothes or other commodities, you are buying an identity. In other words, identities can be commodified. An example that Norton brings up is the looking into the storefront of Ralph Lauren. She claims “Everyone, from the architecture critic at the New York Times to kids in the hall of Montana high school know what Ralph Lauren means” (88). What Norton means by this is that Ralph Lauren carries a persona of a wealthy individual that lives a luxurious life. When someone wears Ralph Lauren they are wearing an identity of an upper class individual. When people walk around the mall and look into storefronts, they see more than just the garment for sale, they are seeing the identity it promotes. …show more content…

In the traditional family where the wife was a stay-at-home mom, most women went shopping to get away from their family for a while. Norton states that shopping “provided an occasion for women to spend long stretches of time in the company of their friends, without the presence of their husbands” (88). In other words, women liked to shop because they wanted to relax and socialize with their friends without their husbands. Because of this, women were subjected to the title consumers. By spending time at the mall, females are being immersed into the American culture of shopping and understanding what identities go along with each garment or

Show More
Related

  • Counterfeit Goods By Dana Thomas Analysis

    428 Words  | 1 Pages

    On late August of 2007, Dana Thomas writes to the general public on the horrors made possible by the buying and selling of counterfeit fashion goods to persuade the end of the consumerism funding monstrous acts. Through the incorporation of ethos, logos, and pathos in her journalism, Thomas persuades her audience with the uncoverings of the sources behind the making of the counterfeit goods.

    Read More

  • History of the American Department Stores

    3093 Words  | 7 Pages

    Over the years, the American department store has developed and evolved as not only a commercial business but also a cultural institution. While it has weathered many storms and changes since its inception and throughout history, its most predominant enemy has been a change in the lifestyle of the American people (Whitaker, 2013). As the customer’s needs and wants have shifted, department stores have struggled to keep up with demands. It has been argued that the decline of the department store has been ongoing for the last 50 years (Whitaker, 2013). This dissertation aims to understand how the department store has historically played a role in consumer culture and spending, and additionally, how this has evolved and changed in today’s retail market. Although department stores may not be able to take all the credit for inventing modern shopping, they certainly made its conventions and conveniences commonplace. They set a new standard for the way the consumer should expect to be treated, the type of services that should be provided, and the convenience that should attend the process of acquiring the necessities and niceties of life all in one place. They made shopping into a leisure pastime. This environment meant shopping was a means of freedom to look around, pick up objects with no obligations to buy. As one historian remarked, department stores: “encouraged a perception of the building as a public place, where consumption itself was almost incidental to the delights of a sheltered promenade in a densely crowded, middle-class urban space” (Whitaker, 2006). Although this perception and view of the department store has changed over the years, this paper aims to follow the trail of how and why that happened.

    Read More

  • The Signs Of Shopping By Steve Mckeevitt Summary

    1222 Words  | 3 Pages

    People are often deceived by some famous brands, which they will buy as useless commodities to feel they are distinctive. People require brands to experience the feeling of being special. People spend their money to have something from famous brands, like a bag from Coach or Louis Vuitton which they think they need, yet all that is just people’s wants. Steve McKevitt claims that people give more thought on features or brands when they need to buy a product, “It might even be the case that you do need a phone to carry out your work and a car to get around in, but what brand it is and, to a large extent, what features it has are really just want” (McKevitt, 145), which that means people care about brands more than their needs. Having shoes from Louis Vuitton or shoes that cost $30 it is designed for the same use.

    Read More

  • The Sex of Things: Gender and Consumption in Historical Perspective

    2462 Words  | 5 Pages

    In the introduction, de Grazia lays the groundwork for why we should be concerned with how gender impacts the study of consumption. Simplistic notions of naturally or inevitably identifying the female sex with shopping sprees are challenged in favor of a deeper inquiry into the assumptions revolving around AMr. Breadwinner@ and AMrs. Consumer@(3). Instead of merely debating whether consumption is liberating or oppressive, these essays are concerned with the study of consumption in terms of the construction of gender roles, class relations, the family, and the state.

    Read More

  • Analyzing Thorstein Veblen's The Theory of the Leisure Class

    856 Words  | 2 Pages

    It is interesting to consider Veblen’s theory of conspicuous consumption as it pertains to the modern day fashion industry, specifically the luxury fashion sector. In The Theory of the Leisure Class, Veblen said “we all find a costly hand-wrought articles of apparel much preferable to a less expensive imitation of it;” however, at the beginning of the 20th century, couture clothing was exclusively available to those who were very wealthy, simply because of how much the garments cost. By the mid-1930’s, businesses were beginning to change their ways of thinking after seeing the enormous profit that the Walt Disney Company received once they licensed the making of Mickey Mouse novelty items. Christian Dior was the first of many fashion designers to foll...

    Read More

  • Formation of Imagined Communities

    1927 Words  | 4 Pages

    In “The man behind Abercrombie and Fitch.” An interview conducted by Benoit Denizet-Lewis displays a glimpse into the life of Mike Jeffries and his views of his company only hiring “good-looking” people and targeting “good-looking” people to wear his clothes. This has been done in order to force his audience to recognize that the issue of acceptance one’s peers and exclusion of a community mentioned by Mike Jeffries, is a result of cultural perceptions and individual self-image. Denizet-Lewis skillfully shows that while Jeffries remarks of not wanting the “not-so-popular” kids to shop in his stores, it poses a question to consumers asking what change in our attitudes will come or if there will be any change at all. Thus comes the issue of how consumers today have a shift in the reasoning behind why one buys clothing and the motivating factors that influence one to buy certain clothing. Denizet-Lewis also demonstrates the different messages that controversial advertisements and statements affect different groups of people and how what they project is really what people desire, though deemed by many people as unacceptable or inappropriate. The author also examines how in the news media, the image has become more important than the message and how images have taken precedent over actual issues and character. As a result of this, various communities have formed by the construct of selling to “beautiful people” and how popular appeal has become an extension of a person.

    Read More

  • What You Pawn I Will Redeem Summary

    876 Words  | 2 Pages

    For many years, people grow up in a society where it is easily assessable to consume goods whenever they want. In the circumstance, that they have money or willingness to sacrifice their time. Being raised by a society controlled by money, it is easy to forget what one really values. The “consumer society” is changing people to focus on their selves and seek goods as a form of achieving happiness rather than a functional way to finding one’s identity. In the story What You Pawn I Will Redeem, by Sherman Alexie, the regalia are not a product that people typically viewed as decorative cloth, to Jackson. It

    Read More

  • Christine Frederick's Selling Mrs. Consumer

    1890 Words  | 4 Pages

    In 1929, Christine Frederick published Selling Mrs. Consumer, which taught manufacturers and advertisers how to sell products to American women. Today consumer culture is a part of everyday life and is seen as a female activity, and is seen as a natural one for women. Consumer identity is bound up in notions of the feminine. During the Revolution, women’s political role involved consumer boycotts; women were expected to run a household well, and took an active role in purchasing decisions. By the nineteenth century, middle-class women became defined as audiences and readers, consuming for pleasure, consumerism was becoming a significant part of peoples identity (Peiss, 1998).

    Read More

  • The Connection between A Bug’s Life and The Chosen People

    2008 Words  | 5 Pages

    In the essay The Chosen People, Stewart Ewen, discusses his perspective of middle class America. Specifically, he explores the idea that the middle class is suffering from an identity crisis. According to Ewen’s theory, “the notion of personal distinction [in America] is leading to an identity crisis” of the non-upper class. (185) The source of this identity crisis is mass consumerism. As a result of the Industrial Revolution and mass production, products became cheaper and therefore more available to the non-elite classes. “Mass production was investing individuals with tools of identity, marks of personhood.” (Ewen 187) Through advertising, junk mail and style industries, the middle class is always striving for “a stylistic affinity to wealth,” finding “delight in the unreal,” and obsessed with “cheap luxury items.” (Ewen 185-6) In other words, instead of defining themselves based on who they are on the inside, the people of middle class America define themselves in terms of external image and material possessions.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Dawn Of The Dead

    1466 Words  | 3 Pages

    The postindustrial American society defined themselves with reference to the goods they owned and not how much hard work they had put into the production of the goods. At the time, striving for material goods was a defining factor in individuals’ lives based on the television and advertising practices at the time. The society viewed shopping malls as crucial places of commerce and places from which people define themselves. Incidentally, all malls were built as consumption places and not places for production activities. As such, there were places for final consumers of goods and services. In other words, the society spent hours eating, relaxing and shopping in the malls, the convenience of worry zones as well as living a consumer’s dream. The notion that the consumer would always want to consume more of goods every time, was thus

    Read More

  • Shopping: Online vs. Store

    738 Words  | 2 Pages

    When comparing two different ways of shopping most people do not even think about the difference, they do both and not even realize it. In today's society people shop while at work, after work and on the weekends, whenever time permits. Stop and think how can I get more time in the day for family or just myself? The best way to figure that out with all the recourses we have is to go into a store and spend time looking through racks and waiting in endless lines to just purchase something. I compared going into a store verses online shopping; to see which one will save you time and money.

    Read More

  • The Mall in America

    1476 Words  | 3 Pages

    Mall appreciators argue that the malls are centers of entertainment and pleasure for mall visitors. George Lewis in “The mall as Refuge”, asserts that “kids come to look around, meet and make friends, stay away from home and hang out- because there is nowhere else to go” (1990, P. 309). He believes that teenagers go to malls to socialize and to escape from the troubles in their lives and at home. Therefore, malls serve as a second home for kids. Similarly, Lewis says that with the controlled environment of malls, with the security and the central location of malls as a good reason why many retired, and old people visit malls. Here they get to meet up with old friends, exercise, eat out, and share experiences with their old friends. These two groups as Lewis claims are misfits in society because; the world considers them as unproductive. Jon Pahl also ...

    Read More

  • Why Do Female Shoppers Use More Plastic Bags

    754 Words  | 2 Pages

    Different patterns were observed between the two sexes. It was found that female shoppers used more bags than male shoppers. Male shoppers used less bags than female shoppers did. Past research presented consistent results regarding sex of female driver (Kruger & Byker, 2009). The current study’s findings were yet another variation on this and support the gender stereotype that women buy more items when shopping than men do.

    Read More

  • Smart Shoppers Essay

    754 Words  | 2 Pages

    Everyone likes shopping, but everyone has their own way of spending when they go shopping. I love shopping, but I hate being at the mall, if I don’t need to be there then I won’t be there. I’ve noticed that when I have money, I do not buy anything, and when I do not have money I want everything I see. From my experience I’ve observed that there are people who shop smart, people who are just plain addicted to shopping, people who join another person while shopping, basically called window watchers.

    Read More

  • Descriptive Essay About Shopping

    749 Words  | 2 Pages

    Shopping is something that has to be done whether you enjoy it or not to get essentials needed. We all go places where merchandize is being sold for a specific reason. Whether you go to the mall, shopping centers, or your local grocery store, you 'll always encounter many types of shoppers. Shopping isn’t always as fun as it sounds to everyone, but it is something we often do. This is the only way we get products we need, by personally buying them. You have three main shoppers including impulse buyers, list makers, and bargain hunters.

    Read More

More about Anne Norton Signs Of Shopping Summary

Open Document