The Consumer Society: Learning to Buy The Culture of Consumption Indifference curves are easily understood when they describe two items that can be substituted for each other; in the examples, corn and beans are both vegetables in the general category of food, theater and bridge both offer recreation. Expenditure data show that consumers do shift choices within such general categories. The shape of the curve traces the extent to which the consumer finds the two products substitutable; since this is a separate decision for each individual, indifference curves may vary in shape from person to person. Read More Evolution of the Department Store The controlled type of center, especially the larger ones, holds for its tenants a number of advantages. Some of these are obvious from the foregoing description of characteristics and reasons for growth. One is the convenience of adequate free parking. A second consists of the balanced shopping attraction which affords the consumer an opportunity for a one-stop buying expedition.  Read More The Social Atmosphere: Fashionable Playhouses The small, luxuriously appointed theatres where reserved seats ranged in price from one to three dollars had become the home of a relatively exclusive amusement. Every city had its fashionable playhouses. Writing of New York, Henry Collins Brown speaks of the friendly social atmosphere of Wallack's, Daly's Fifth Avenue Theatre, the Madison Square ("most exquisite theatre in all the world"), and the Union Square. In Chicago there were McVicker's and Hooley's; Boston offered the Museum and the old Boston Theatre. Read More Luxury and Severity: Underwear and Outwear Roller-skating had been introduced by James L. Plimpton in 1863, and New York's social leaders, hoping it could be restricted to "the educated and refined classes," quickly made it fashionable. Their Roller Skating Association leased the Atlantic House in Newport and made over its dining-hall and piazza into a skatingrink. It held weekly assemblies where such distinguished guests as General Sherman watched "tastefully dressed young men and girls, sailing, swimming, floating through the mazes of the march, as if impelled by magic power." Read More Poiret and Avant-garde Fashion Paul Poiret was the leading Paris designer from 1908 to World War 1. Possibly influenced by the ideas of the German dress reform movement, he designed loose, straight coats cut !ike kimonos and straight, often high-waisted dresses which hung from the shoulders. Read More