The department store is “a large retail store with four or more separate departments under one roof, each selling different classes of goods of which one is women’s and children’s wear” (Jeffrys in Adburgham, 2012, p.140). The Victorian era is synonymous with industrialisation in the UK. In the 19th century, consumer goods started being produced at a never-before-seen fast pace due to technological advances; they were also being produced much cheaper which meant that the number of people who could afford to buy such products grew exponentially compared to past decades. The department store was a fairly new development in the 1800s. It could be argued that from a feminist perspective, it has played a part in aiding the liberation of women and from a Marxist perspective that the department store, as well as industrialisation, have greatly increased consumption and modified consumer behaviour in such a way that it has led to causing countless social inequalities, as well as environmental problems that we are facing today.

The department store was a place which was mainly aimed at catering to women; it was a place where women could meet, socialise, go shopping and relax. General economic prosperity in the 19th century meant that women could spend relatively substantial amounts of money on buying consumer goods such as clothes, as well as a plethora of other products such as fabrics, jewellery and so on. Therefore, in an environment where anything and everything that a Victorian woman could desire to buy was available in a department store, naturally, it can be assumed that the consumption of retail goods in the 19th century had increased.

As I have already mentioned above, the department store was a relatively modern and new development for 19th-century Victorian society. “The origins of the British department store are firmly rooted in the twin processes of industrialisation and urbanisation” (Lancaster, 2000, p.7). What this means is that without both industrialisation and urbanisation happening simultaneously, at the rapid pace that it did, department stores would not have existed. This is important to understand when thinking about the extent of the effect that the department store had on consumption by both men and women at the time. It is quite unclear when and where the first department store was created, but it is known that “Bainbridge’s of Newcastle upon Tyne and Kendal, Milne and Faulkner of Manchester both developed expanded drapery businesses in the late 1830s” (Lancaster, 2000, p.7). Taking into consideration the fact that there were opportunities for social mobility, and there was a growing (lower) middle class in Britain, this led to the success of existing department stores in the mid-19th century, as well as offering an opportunity for more such stores to open and expand. In essence, urbanisation created space in cities for department stores to open and expand, while the process of rapid industrialisation supplied stores with, in comparison to the past, relatively affordable products for them to sell as well as advertise to potential consumers.  

Adburgham (2012) highlights how the main consumers of products in department stores were the new middle class, who spent their money with rather careful consideration of good value when buying consumer goods. It was important for this novel socio-economic class to show that they have money by buying “expensive clothes, handsome household furnishings, carriages” (Adburgham, 2012, p.143) and so on, with value for money. Since products at department stores were cheaper than in, for example, little stores, the new middle class chose to spend their money in department stores. Also, the improved ways of transportation around London allowed and gave people the possibility to access department stores much more easily; you could take an omnibus from one side of town straight to an area where a department store was located.

It is important to note, however, that “the elite still patronized the little shops that their mothers and grandmothers patronized” (Adburgham, 2012, p.146). This means that consumption among the smallest percentage of the population (the elite) did not increase or decrease noticeably, but rather, it was the consumption of this new middle class that increased due to the development of the department store. It would be correct to assume, that the fact that most of the elite did not indulge in shopping for clothes at department stores had little to no impact on the overall consumption of the whole of society, seeing as they were such a small percentage of the whole population in the 19th century.

Figure 1 shows a drawing titled “The Pantheon, Oxford Street, Winter Fashions 1834” by Benjamin Read. In the picture we see women, men and children walking around a section of the Pantheon, dressed in winter clothing, browsing and looking around different sections of the floor. This source suggests that going to the department store was a social activity, as we see the people conversing and looking around at each other while carrying out their shopping. Such upscale department stores were well-lit and well-decorated and as well as being located in central parts of cities, such as Oxford Street. The people portrayed in this drawing appear wealthy, which can be deduced by the women’s coats being lined with fur and having fashionable gigot sleeves, which exaggerated the waist. The men are wearing “frock coats” which “had become the most popular coat for informal daytime wear and were usually worn with a top hat and cane,” (Johnston, 2016, p.9). Department stores, such as the Pantheon for example, catered to both men and women, and in their catering to women’s needs and tastes they have arguably contributed to the integration of women into, at the time, male-dominated society and spaces.

The majority of customers of department stores were women. The window displays, the products being sold, as well as different forms of entertainment inside department stores were designed to be appealing to women; “they have been the majority amongst the crowds of customers” (Lancaster, 2000, p.171) inside such stores. Of course, there were many different types of women shoppers, such as those who went to department stores with the intent of buying consumer goods, and women who went to department stores to do window shopping, also known as ‘tabbies’ at the time. However, still, it can be argued that despite individual shopping habits and patterns, women have contributed to the increase of consumerism in the 19th century.

As well as giving women the opportunity to be seen in public, previously male-dominated spaces, such as city centres, the department store also gave women employment opportunities. Women were employed to be buyers, saleswomen and so on. This undoubtedly has contributed to the first wave of feminism by department stores being “the first institutions that opened the door of middle and high management to women, thereby creating perhaps the first career structure with genuine prospects of promotion for women in the modern period,” (Lancaster, 2000, p.177). In addition, this could possibly explain why department stores were so successful in attracting women of different socio-economic classes to visit the stores in person and buy their products. From my point of view, in the context of the 19th-century highly patriarchal society, women who worked at department stores were better suited to predict trends of female consumerism as well as knowing what to stock the stores’ shelves with and what products to advertise as well as what products will not sell successfully, so, in conclusion, the department store empowered both women whom they employed together with the women that were shopping there.

However, there are arguments that the department stores did not quite liberate women but oppressed them, in the form of female workers being exploited by having extremely low wages and being overworked. Despite there being opportunities for some women to be promoted to well-paid management positions, most women “had to endure long hours, tight discipline, and often the iniquities of the living in system. Low pay and the lack of effective trade union organisation was a major problem for British workers” (Lancaster, 2000, p.177). This doesn’t come as a surprise since many women to this day face such problems.

When thinking of the world that we are living in today, feminist Naomi Wolf brings up many interesting points about department stores and the capitalist system as a whole in her book ‘The Myth of Beauty’. She argues that the nature of department stores, every single detail in such stores ranging from where certain products are placed to how the staff are trained to speak to customers, perpetuates patriarchal values in society, as well as capitalizes on women’s insecurities by essentially trying to put across the message that women should buy more to be ‘competent’ women and to feel beautiful, through a meticulously designed shopping experience. It can be argued that this has been started in the 19th century with the development of department stores.

There were also stores other than department stores where women could do their shopping which contributed to the rise in consumption. As I have mentioned above, the aristocracy and elite preferred to shop at little stores because of family tradition of the women, as well as such little stores being more expensive, therefore more luxurious. Closer to the end of the 19th century “such high-class clientele for made to measure clothes was beginning to be drawn away by a new development in London shopping” (Adburgham, 2012, p.208), these were the newly set up handsome dressmaking establishments. They were very exclusive on who they accepted to be their clientele as well as never advertising their products. Such types of dressmaking establishments can be seen as the women’s equivalent of the men’s Savile Row tailors.

Men did participate in the department store culture of the 19th century, with some department stores having separate, designated sections for men. However, bespoke tailoring was more popular among middle-class men in particular because of the rise in popularity of the dandy aesthetic and lifestyle. The nineteenth century is identified “as the historical moment at which men relinquished aesthetic control over their clothing, replacing a rule of taste with a more rigid adherence to the dictates of propriety” (Breward, 1999, p.24). Personally, I believe that this evidences the fact that men did as well contribute to the overall rise of consumption in the 19th century because it can be considered the first time in history when men carefully followed fashion trends, instead of celebrating individualism in the way that they dressed.

Breward (1999) touches upon the idea that the shopping experience of high-end tailors, such as tailoring shops in Saville Row in the 19th century, for men was specifically designed with the purpose of making the man feel like he is important. It also somewhat reinforces the ideas of traditional masculinity through specially trained staff in the way they acted towards their middle and high-class male customers, as well as in how they spoke, knowing what to say and what to do at the right time, so that such subconscious cues, in essence, would make the male customer feel more manly. This is particularly interesting to me because this could possibly link to the fact that women were slowly gaining more power and independence through activities such as the department store shopping experience, which, in an intensely patriarchal 19th-century society could have possibly made men feel emasculated. This, in turn, could be the reason as to why the male shopping experience was the way that it was in the 19th century.

Breward (1999) also explains how there were different levels to the tailoring trade. There was the ‘West End’ trade for the upper classes, which specialised in handmade garments which were produced in-house by skilled artisans. At the level below was the ‘provincial’ trade where garments were made using both factory machines and human labour. The last level was the ‘cash tailor’ who purchased ready-made garments from wholesale clothing companies and warehouses, with the garments usually being made by exploited female or immigrant workers. As well as this, there was also a sizeable second-hand market for buying and selling bespoke tailoring pieces. In short, men did also contribute to the rise of consumption in the 19th century, but through different outlets when compared to women.

In conclusion, it may well be argued that the development of the department store in the 19th century had increased consumption among most socio-economic groups of people, as well as being one of the factors that have led to today’s problems with over-consumption and the environment. Since the 19th century, department stores have only been getting bigger and more technologically advanced with each year, progressively selling much more products as well as hiring whole teams of people to figure out how to market and advertise products, in other words figuring out how to increase consumption. Some advantages can be picked out when thinking of department stores of the 19th century and their contribution to society, however there are numerous well-informed and well written arguments against them, so it is difficult to objectively decide whether department stores were beneficial to society and its people or not, however, in closing, department stores did increase consumption in the 19th century.



Bibliography:
Adburgham, A. (2012) Shops and Shopping 1800-1914 Where, and in What Manner the Well-Dressed Englishwoman Bought Her Clothes. London: Faber and Faber.
Breward, C. (1999) The Hidden Consumer: Masculinities, Fashion and City Life, 1860-1914. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
City of London (2022) The History of London Department stores, City of London. Available at: https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/things-to-do/history-and-heritage/london-metropolitan-archives/collections/the-history-of-london-department-stores (Accessed: February 28, 2023).
Johnston, L. et al. (2016) 19th-Century Fashion in Detail. London, UK: Thames & Hudson.
Lancaster, B. (2000) The Department Store: A Social History. London: Leicester Univ. Press.
Porter, A.N. and Low, A.M. (2001) The Oxford History of the British Empire: Volume III, The Nineteenth Century. Oxford, ENK: Oxford University Press.
Wolf, N. (2015) The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty are Used Against Women. London: Vintage Books.