ABSTRACT
In Europe and across the Atlantic in the USA and Canada, the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries witnessed the emergence of a powerful form of retailing, the department store. Although traditionally, department stores have been associated with the selling of clothing and fashion, and most of them in Britain and elsewhere started out as draper shops, this chapter focuses on the type of store that specialized in selling furniture and furnishings or turned these into their most prominent departments. It examines the "model room" as a specific retailing strategy that became instrumental to the highly successful display, advertising and selling of furniture, furnishings, household goods and decorating services in this period. The chapter also discusses the impact of the Antique movement and the craze for the "period room", both of which were instrumental in disseminating historicist styles and popularizing model rooms.
