Material pleasures: the solace of lockdown retail therapy

ABSTRACT

This account examines the significance of emotions and senses as experience and as key factors in a positive interpretation of fashion retail therapy during the second and third lockdowns in the UK, which resulted from the Covid 19 pandemic.

KEYWORDS:

• lockdown
• retail therapy
• hedonic consumption
• self-affirmation
• experience
• emplacement
• sensory imagination

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Charlie Athill

Charlie Athill is a member of the Cultural and Historical Studies department at the London College of Fashion, part of the University of the Arts, London. He is also Co-convenor of the Masculinities Hub at the London College of Fashion. Broadly, his research interests lie in the links between gender and age in both material and popular culture. Published articles include a study on discourse analysis and the representation of male hipsters in the UK, in the Journal of Extreme Anthropology, and a narrative case study exploring the role of material culture in the expression of gender fluidity, published in Queer Studies in Media and Popular Culture.