vienna

from an article that emphasises the importance of changing the
tiny show windows that were at the time common in Europe
and take the example of developments in America to build huge
storefronts:
“Americans have long been aware that light not only moths but
also humans. Regardless of whether [such] an American firm
has jewellery or shoes on sale, its first priority is that the shop
must look sleek and pompous.” 116
The reason for this counsel from the genesis of marketing
studies was that an impressive appearance would attract
customers passing by more effectively. The power of the show
window has been a major concern from the beginning of the
times when mass-produced items comprised the chief category
of goods and the show window became the most important
marketing instrument. It is, therefore, not surprising that the
performative power of the show window has continually been
the subject of critical discourse in the twentieth century. Design
has become a powerful marketing tool, and this has led to
protest. At the time when Roland Barthes conducted his studies
on the fashion system, Vance Packard criticised marketing
methods for using psychological and sociological findings to
manipulate mass consumption. 117 He also attacked the inventions
of consumer culture for creating rites of consumption as well
as their dramatisation prompted by the new research field of
motivational research. Packard called manipulators of symbols
motivational researchers who had become experts in the symbolic
communication with the consumer:
“The persuaders, by 1957, were also learning to improve their
skill in conditioning the public to go on unrestrained buying
splurges when such images as Mother and Father were held up.
Mother was still the better image in relation to sales. Mother’s
Day was grossing $100,000,000 in sales, while Father’s Day was
grossing only $68,000,000.” 118
Show windows are an important advertising medium
and, for small retailers, the only way of advertising in public
116 Austerlitz (1903:25)*.
117 Packard (1968).
118 Packard (1968:144). See also Boesch et.al. (2001) on the history of Mother’s Day.
The
Death
of
Fashion 43