Brand Culture and Branded Workers: Service Work and Aesthetic Labour in Fashion Retail

Abstract

The juxtaposition between production and consumption that characterises the retail sector render it interesting for studies of work and consumption. Contemporary chain store clothing retail is characterised by “lifestyle retail brands” that compete for sales through offering products and services targeted to customers of particular class, age, and gender backgrounds, and with particular orientations to fashion. This paper argues that the influence of branding and marketing in retail extends beyond components such as store design. Branding influences who is employed in a store, and what work they do. This is manifested in two main ways, through customer service provision and through how workers are embodied, both of which influence consumption by shoppers. This article draws on an innovative ethnographic study to explore the nature and meaning of customer service and aesthetic labour.

Keywords:

• Brands
• Retail
• Work
• Customer Service
• Aesthetic Labour
• Fashion
• Consumption

Notes

Correspondence to: Dr Lynne Pettinger, Lecturer, Department of Sociology, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester, CO4 3SQ, UK; Email: [email protected]

A mid‐market store selling men’s, women’s and children’s clothing and products for the home. Further details are given in the section on branding, below. Stores and workers have been given pseudonyms for reasons of confidentiality. More detailed reference details for company documents are not given, also for reasons of confidentiality.

Branding has spread into voluntary sector organisations (de Chernatony and McDonald 1998, 21); “employer branding” is used by companies to recruit the “right” sort of graduates (Sykes 2002). There have also been attempts to “re‐brand” countries. See http://www.wolff‐olins.com/britain/ for example, accessed 10 August 2003.

http://www.debenhams.com/site_services/illustrated_summary.jsp, accessed 30 January 2003.

http://www.monsoon.co.uk/comphistory.htm, accessed 10 June 2003.

Not one of the three stores referred to in this paper.

Although Sayer and Walker (1992) deny that it makes sense to called this service, seeing this function as “sales and maintenance work”, an extension of the production and distribution of products (Sayer and Walker 1992, 61).

Electronic Point of Sale.

Distinction, Shopping Centre, 8 September 2000.

During worker observation, I served several customers whose demands for assistance seemed unlikely to result in a sale, and who appeared to be looking for social interaction rather than goods. In another era, such customers would have been referred to as tabbies (Rappaport 2000, 206).

11 October 2000, central London; 8 October 2000, Shopping Centre.

E.g. Distinction, 25 September 2000, Shopping Centre.

Worker observation, 15 December 1999.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lynne Pettinger

Correspondence to: Dr Lynne Pettinger, Lecturer, Department of Sociology, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester, CO4 3SQ, UK; Email: [email protected]