From the great department store with love

Window display and the transfer of commercial knowledge in early twentieth-century Sweden

Bibliographic Data

ID23036238
AuthorsKlara Arnberg (0000-0002-4807-600X, Stockholm University), Orsi Husz (0000-0002-7194-5533, Uppsala University, corresponding author)
Year2018
Volume4
Issue2
Pages126-155
Publication date2018-05-04
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueHistory of Retailing and Consumption (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2373-5171 • E-ISSN: 2373-518X
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/2373518x.2018.1449922
OpenAlexW2795253413
LanguageEN
Citations received4

This article highlights the transfers and practical uses of the commercial knowledge of window dressing in early twentieth-century Sweden through the analysis of the professional career and family business of Oscar Lundkvist, Swedish display pioneer and former window dresser in chief of the largest and first Swedish department store, Nordiska Kompaniet. Building on rich source material including unique written and photographic documents from the Lundkvist family, educational material and trade journals, we show how the innovative and spectacular became ordinary and mundane in retail praxis. We argue that the emergence and professionalization of window display brought with it the dissemination and trivialization of the same practice. By focusing on not only the most conspicuous aspects and cultural meanings of window displays but also on the materials and competences involved, we explain how setting up the displays became an everyday commercial practice and how it was positioned between advertising and retail as well as between the artistic and the commercial.

Advertising · Art · Business · Media studies · Political science · Praxis · Professionalization · Social science · Sociology · Visual arts · Window (computing) · World Wide Web · Computer Science · Fashion and Cultural Textiles · Law

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Open DOISci-HubOpen Access