A continuing ‘cry for the new’, it is said, drives
present-day consumerism. People are producing and buying new goods
in ever-larger quantities. However, in the past, consumer choices
for new products were paralleled and even overlapped by
structurally embedded practices such as re-use, recycling and
resale. Unfortunately far too little is known about these important
practices. The ‘birth of a consumer society’ was
grounded not only in the appearance of new products and new
industries; a similar drive manifested itself in the handling,
buying and selling of ‘second-hand’.
In this book then the editors confront and integrate historical
research on the world of the new and the old. Papers focus on the
relationship between material culture and novelty, fashion and
innovation on the one hand; and/or patina, second-hand and
re-cycling on the other. Differences existed in the use of old and
new products according to time, place, social and gender groups. By
paying close attention to this historical diversity, this book
explores the changing meanings and motivations of consumption. The
geographical coverage will be an urban one. The studied time frame
will be ‘the long eighteenth-century’ (from circa 1650
until 1900). It was only then that rapid fashion changes, new
imports and spreading industrialization changed the existing
material culture dramatically. However, comparisons crossing time
and place do place sweeping ‘modern’ assumptions in
perspective. After all: who can decipher how the concepts old and
new are changing today, with the current popularity of more
responsible (social and ecological) forms of consumption and
recycling, and with vintage-clothing and antique furniture back en
vogue?
Bruno Blondé is Research Professor at the Center for
Urban History (University of Antwerp). His research interest
includes urban networks, transport history and the history of
consumption.
Natacha Coquery is appointed Professor at the University of
Tours. She has written extensively on the shopping and consumer
habits of the French elites.
Jon Stobart is appointed professor at the University of
Northampton. He has worked on urban networks and consumption in
spatial perspective.
Ilja Van Damme is Postdoctoral Fellow of the Fund for
Scientific Research. He has written a PhD on the interrelationships
between consumer changes and retail evolutions.