Class Structure and Consumerism

Collecting tends to be the consumption of nonessential luxury goods and therefore has previously been seen as something that was restricted to the upper echelons of society.The lower classes only having the funding for everyday necessities like food and clothing.
To ensure that certain  goods retained their significance as  symbols of status Sumptuary Laws were put in place which were legislation which restricted luxuries goods either by restricting the numbers available or only limiting them  to a certain level of society. In 594BC in Athens, Sumpuary laws were used to curb noticeable consumption. Women especially were singled out and were restricted on the amount of clothing  and baggage they were allowed  to bring into a marriage.
Prior to consumer societies it was only the landed rich that could afford to collect paintings, furniture and art artifacts. As the years have gone on many of these collections have become splintered as they have been passed down through the generations, or  have even been sold off for well needed funds.This combined with changes in tastes has meant that many collections have disappeared.

This selection process is similar to that seen in the family photo album. Often the photographs will have been chosen to show us or our surroundings at their best, to show off new possessions, holidays etc. We will only keep the best to represent us as we wish to be seen (Sontag1977).  A modern day example of this can be seen within our networking sites.Within these we endlessly take out those photographs we do not wish others to see. In doing so we create an alter image of ourselves as we would wish others to perceive us.  Those who collect ,whether for museums or their own homes also edit possessions in this way to reflect what they wish the rest of society to see.


The contemporary collecting of objects can be seen to have evolved with modernity and latterly post-modernity. We had entered into a period where we were no longer just influenced by the church and we now had greater freedom of choice both personally and materially. Cultural freedoms and postmodernist capitalism gave them a far greater selection to collect from. With the expansion of world trade with the new World and the massive change in consumption that were brought about by the industrial revolution a consumer society was born.  Mass production and reproduction was now available, which brought  consumer opportunity to those in the lower class systems who now had more available funding for non-necessities. Belk believes that we still look at objects from the past nostalgically and  associate it with the goodlife and the wealthy. Thus making us wish that we too could buy into it .

The Great Exhibition of 1851 introduced an abundance of new and exotic artifacts to a massive audience and suddenly the unexpected and unusual became de rigueur. This led to emerging industrial and merchant aristocracy wishing to acquire social distinction and status started collecting art.

In the late 1800s commemorative pottery was specifically designed for plebeian culture, with Empirical designs being especial popular. Similarly, cartes-de-visites became very collectable with the advent of  photography around the same time.The move from the bourgeois collecting to the masses was particularly noticeable during the war and also during the American Depression in the 1930's. At this time people were positively encouraged to collect to deflect crime, riots  and melancholy.

The post WW2 years  of the 1950s and 1960's brought about new prosperity and the toys and modern collectables from this period still hold the highest of values. By the 1970's however, Britain was flung into a period of high unemployment, strikes and uncertainty. As a result there was the rise of the anti-establishment, and the introduction of the punk era. Rubbish of all kinds from newspaper cuttings, plastic bags, and safety pins all of a sudden became a popular way of expressing our alienation from society and expressing identity. By valuing things of no value they challenged the general idea of worth.
The 1980's was an era of the ' have' and have not. In the Thatcher era people were encouraged to make lots of money and it resulted in some making huge bonuses. People were desperate to spend their money and display their wealth and so the arena of collections grew. By late 1990's people had grown tired of this spend, spend, spend era and the growth of ethical consumerism began and due to this and we had an increased interest in the second hand market.

Now in 2012 the arena of the collector has changed enormously. We can still find items for our collections through the usual route of antique shops and fairs, secondhand shops, carboot sales, jumblesales and auctions, but we also now have the advantage of the internet. The web has added enormously to the ease of finding what we wish at the right price without us moving from the comfort of our armchair. If we type collectors of paraphernalia into our search engine you come up with 459,000 results.
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