ABSTRACT
Advertising was a socializing force in the new consumer culture. It not only suggested what to wear but also how to care for those fashionable new goods in modern ways. The message is clear: if one is to dress as a modern person, one’s domestic practices must be transformed as well. The Lux ad copy contrasted the old washing practice (rubbing) with the modern (dipping the garment up and down), giving a lesson on how to wash clothes in a simpler, modern, and more refined way. Modernity, then, has to do not only with progress, refinement, and sophistication but also with making life simpler.
