ABSTRACT
The popular leisure practice of window-shopping emerges in the United States during the late nineteenth-century as a marketing strategy designed to engage viewers' imaginations and consequently arouse their desires for the commodities displayed. Appealing to the voyeuristic inclinations of prospective consumers, these elaborate windows invite passers-by to glimpse mimetic representations of everyday life, entirely comprised of new, pleasingly displayed, saleable objects. These carefully rendered scenarios encourage viewers to compose narratives, linked to the displayed objects and clothed mannequins, which imbue the merchandise with characteristics such as class, taste, and respectability. Through these scenic depictions of idealized everyday life, populated by strategically arranged goods and elegantly clothed posed mannequins, shop windows induce the viewers to identify with the attributes of the displayed commodities in order to evoke desire.
