ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts of the concepts covered in the preceding chapters of this book. The book focuses on interactions between producers and consumers in the period 1750-1850. These continued and developed at three different levels: communication media, discussions about taste and style, and everyday relationships between furniture-makers and customers. The chapter considers the question of what the interactions between producers and consumers brought to the design, production and consumption of furniture in the period of industrialisation. The role of women is relevant here, as furniture items were designed with female consumers in mind, yet Gillow's letters also show that women themselves could participate in discussion about design, material and prices. Although there was apparent emulation between social equals, middle-class consumers were involved in forming taste more flexibly, choosing both fashionable and traditional designs, depending on the situation.
