Designing the Department Store: Display and Retail at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

Designing the Department Store considers the significant achievements and changes in interior design, display and architecture which contributed to a major shift in retail design practice at the turn of the twentieth century.

The 'displayman', the predecessor of today's window-dressers and visual merchandisers, is the focus of this study. Changeability, creativity and technological enhancement are all factors which became greater priorities in visual merchandising in the late nineteenth century, and which remain central to the success of retail today.

The book builds a new 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. The study presents a new 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, the book reveals new 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.

In addition, the book identifies and isolates 'display' as a distinct moment in the life of the commodity, and interprets 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, revealing how display achieved an agency which transformed everyday objects into commodities and made consumers out of passersby.