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On a Grand Shopping Spree

Erina Cavalli (Independent Researcher, Switzerland)

ISBN: 978-1-80262-976-7, eISBN: 978-1-80262-975-0

Publication date: 14 December 2023

Abstract

This chapter seeks to elucidate specific behavioral patterns that occur when people travel and consume luxury items using concepts drawn from sociocultural and economic theories. These concepts are Walter Benjamin's “aura,” Karl Marx's “commodity fetishism,” and Arnold Van Gennep's “liminality.” These concepts are deployed within the spheres of tourism and luxury in order to analyze how tourists on a shopping spree search for forms of authenticity, how this type of travel is similar in many respects to a religious quest, and, finally, how the design of luxury outlets in European capitals convey religious overtones.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgments

Precious advice of visual artist Marco Poloni in preparing this chapter and of visual artist Chelsea Knight in proofreading the text is acknowledged.

Citation

Cavalli, E. (2023), "On a Grand Shopping Spree", Gravari-Barbas, M. and Sabatini, N. (Ed.) Fashion and Tourism (Tourism Social Science Series, Vol. 26), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 155-173. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1571-504320230000026010

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited