Seduction in the City: the Birth of Shopping

The department store is one of the cleverest inventions of the industrial revolution. Not only did it literally invent the concept of shopping, it also sowed the seeds of female emancipation and created the consumer culture. In 1852, a French entrepreneur, Aristide Boucicaut created the world’s first department store, Le Bon Marché. His genius idea? To target the new middle class woman and attract her to a fantasy land where all types of goods were available and where she could go un-chaperoned…