Creating ‘The Look’: Staging Value in the Antique Shop

This paper explores the concept of ‘staging value’ particularly the role that antique objects might play in this value staging process. Dealers typically choose, alter, repair and assemble their objects for sale to achieve a particular ‘look’. Two cases of dealers involved in creating and maintaining quite different and specific ‘looks’ are explored (Eccentric Englishness and Scandinavian Design). Findings suggest that while the look represents a style or theme within the antique shop, on a deeper level this style or theme also becomes demanding of the dealer in choosing and/or altering the right objects to complement, and fit in with, the look. Therefore the paper closes by developing the concept of the ‘aesthetic regime’ around which networks of both consumers and cultural intermediaries might be organised.

Citation:

Elizabeth Parsons (2009) ,"Creating ‘The Look’: Staging Value in the Antique Shop", in NA - Advances in Consumer Research Volume 36, eds. Ann L. McGill and Sharon Shavitt, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 177-180.