He created the character Woman,
and then shaped his store to suit their nature.
-The Ladies Paradise by Emile Zola
In the "flip flop" post I alluded to the idea of men and women switching roles in the world of fashion. In Emile Zola's book The Ladies Paradise, he finds a kind of hybrid between fiction and history to really explore the idea of women as shoppers by nature and the industry created for them to live out their desires to dress.
It totally blows my mind that Emile Zola wasn't a particularly fashion obsessed dude himself, in fact his most famous books is an equally as detailed account of the coal mining industry, which other than in Zoolander has probably never been linked to the fashion industry (haha, good one). The book is about the conception and development of the department store and the main male character, in the above quote, claims to create woman as a character who is inherently thrift, can't resist a bargain and loves to buy, buy, buy.
Emile Zola would be shocked that a little bit into the twenty first century we've not only expanded our department stores, but we thought of this crazy thing called the internet and then turned that into a giant mall. Actually, he probably wouldn't be shocked at all.
