To what extent are we all shopping for identity?

To what extent are we all shopping for identity?

‘Shopping is no longer just the mundane act of going out and buying a product…retailing has been imbued with a whole new ethos, a new significance, a new cultural meaning – and commodities themselves seem to have taken on a new central role in peoples lives’.
(Gardener & Sheppard, 1989: 43)

We all shop! It’s a simple fact of life that we all shop or consume (in Western society at least), but what does this say about us? Are we looking for that special something that personifies what we are? Are we in fact personified by what we buy and not the other way around? Is shopping and therefore consumerism merely a necessity or do we even acknowledge it’s existence at all? These are some of the areas into which I will be looking at through the course of this essay.

According to Bauman (1988,1992) the ‘consumer ethic’ has replaced the long established ‘ work ethic’. He postulates that whereas previous generations ...