ABSTRACT
Representations of progress have played a central role in the aspirations of most consumer cultures. New products (and new uses for existing products) are, after all, marketed to the mass consuming public in terms of enhanced performance, lifestyle improvement, increased efficiency and other themes similarly suggestive of progress. It is, therefore, necessary for all consumer cultures to incorporate visions of a better tomorrow and to make these visions appear achievable and attainable through specific types of consumer behaviour. Whilst pervasive conceptions of the future invariably mirror the concerns and apparent deficiencies and inadequacies of an ever-changing and evolving present, the existence of a progressive ideal future in consumer culture has itself remained constant. During the mid-nineteenth century for instance, the consumer culture of the newly emerging bourgeois leisure classes placed considerable emphasis on ideals of refinement and social improvement (Veblen 1899/1995). Style, taste and fashion enacted through specific types and knowledge of consumption practices offered a mechanism through which class and status could be emulated and achieved by those with access to the necessary cultural and economic capital. As Corrigan (1997) remarks, the ‘better tomorrow’ that characterizes this period was clearly underpinned by broader modern aspirations of the times relating to a very European vision of civilization and progress.
