In the novel Ladies delight, Emile Zola described one of the first department stores in the world and the atmosphere which existed inside. He described the promotion of a young country girl Denise who came to Paris in search of a better life, the success of a developing department store business, and the atmosphere of commerce and shopping, which was innovative in 19th century France.
We can see that author of Ladies Delight presented shopping as a new idol for worship, as Octave Mouret, owner of Ladies delight had given the pleasure of consuming thousands of Parisians. His department store was attracted by the variety of goods and organization of selling process, which quickly gained success among Parisians. Unlike most small retail business owners, who owned one or several small shops which with strict specialization, Octave Mouret chose another way to attract customers but a variety of goods and convenient organization of sales, which didn’t exist before. The approach chosen by Octave Mouret was radical in the 19th century as he had a different concept of selling goods attracting customers to buy a variety of goods, by the ability to place goods in different ways, so that customers bought different items, looking for their specific buys.
Unlike old fashioned stores which attracted customers by lower prices or higher quality goods compared to their competitors, Au Bonheur des dames attracted by the organization of selling process, which transformed decorated variety of goods into a pleasure of consumerism, which was unusual for 19th century Europe and was much more effective marketing tool than low prices. 19th century with its industry and production growth gave birth to a new era of consumerism, turning selling goods into a new type of industry. According to Kant’s concept of “maturity”, the appearance of department stores and the epoch of consumerism was caused by previous enrichment of people in the industrialization epoch, who wanted to spend money and improve their lives following fashion and trying to boost their wealth. It was mainly directed at the bourgeoisie or middle class, people who wanted to demonstrate their prosperity after quick enrichment.
In Ladies Delight, we see the influence of modernity on society. With the penetration of new values and the new morality, traditions which were existed for centuries were destroyed. Zola wrote with admiration about the business of department stores, commerce details, etc. at the same time making clear that the prosperity of Au Bonheur des dames led to the bankruptcy of small stores, which represented survivals of tradition and romanticism. Zola is sympathetic towards shop owners who didn’t accept the business model of Mouret, he despised Mouret’s mercantilism, criticizes consumerism, by at the same time it’s clear for us that these vices were forgiven by the author for the sake of progress which Au Bonheur des dames made. Such an approach is typical for W. J. Goethe who stated in Faust that restlessness is the mainspring of human progress, which demands the sacrifice of old values for the better of new generations.
The spread of consumerism led to changing social to changing fashion, promoting more liberal views over conservative and traditional moral and ethic norms of 19th century France. Zola describes the erotic qualities of underwear in the novel:
“woman was dressed again, the white wave of this cascade of linen slipped behind the mystery of skirts… all this dead percale and dead muslin… was about to come alive with the life of the flesh, warm and redolent with the smell of love, a white cloud sanctified, bathed in night, the slightest flutter of which, to reveal the pink glimpse of a knee in the depths of this whiteness, would devastate the world.” (399-400), which shows the power of consumerism over traditional conservative ethics, as society was ready to change views on things which were under taboo in past.
Concluding it’s important to say that in the example of Denise, Zola showed that human virtues, ideals of humanism, and moral purity are immortal and should be preserved even in such changing world, where mercantilism penetrated all spheres of life.
Reference:
Emile Zola Ladies Delight Penguin Classics, 2001.