ABSTRACT
What is this about? It is a description of a shopping experience which has resonance with many in the contemporary western world. The reference to the silk department might be a giveaway of earlier times, as might the mention of gold and purses. Nowadays it would be more likely to be ready-made designer label clothes and the swiping of credit cards! However, Emile Zola’s novel The Ladies’ Paradise captures a historical moment and, with the arrival of the department store, the modernization of commercial activities. The historical moment is the middle of the nineteenth century when the Bon Marche department store opened in Paris. There were parallel developments in the United States and in England. Although the advent of such large-scale shops meant the demise of traditional family stores, as recorded in the novel, Zola’s novel is a celebration of the activity of modernity and in a sense a ‘hymn to modern business, a celebration of the entrepreneurial spirit’ (Nelson 1995: xi). The department store is the signifier of the promise of capitalism as experienced in the life of the city and for the middle classes. The store is a model for the capitalist economic system, based on the exchange of goods for profit. It is characterized by the principles of speed of turnover, circulation, commodity exchange and the rapid renewal of capital in the form of commodities.
