ABSTRACT
The new show-shops that were springing up in both the East and West end of London during the 1840s were described as “houses in the metropolis fitted up like palaces” which advertised with “elegantly embellished circulars attached to covers of magazines” and which had “handsome plate-glass fronts.” Robinson also insists that on the outside of their shop “there should be glass, gas, gold, and glare. Inside there should be the same with plenty of brass, and if possible a little wit.” Commodities, Marx recognized at the time, are deceitful by their very nature, and advertising and palatial surroundings only aid that deception. If the moral of the story for reformers was “all that glitters is not gold” in the modern economy, then the seamstress, the shops that she worked for, and the female consumer were a perfect vehicle for that moral.
