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Article
Class-based emotions
and the allure of fashion
consumption
Karen Rafferty
Dublin Institute of Technology, Ireland
Abstract
Consumers today continue to be enchanted by appearance fashions. For some, having
the capacity to style their bodies in ways they desire entitles them to position into this
practice in line with aspirational cultural standards. This, in turn, can produce considerable emotional rewards. Yet keeping up with appearance revisions demands unwavering effort and substantial investments be made. Consequently, for others, maintaining
standards in fashionable appearance also represents a source of anxiety, distress and
disillusionment. In this article the relationship between social class, the development of
emotional tendencies and consumption practice is theorized by locating the intersection of consumption and emotion experience within the context of social structures.
Bourdieus practice theory, and more recent conceptualizations of class-based emotions, provide useful frameworks to interpret a variety of divergent fashion consumption strategies occurring amongst women. The article illuminates the vital role of
intense emotional experiences in social life. It demonstrates how class position converges with familial relations to produce divergent forms of emotional-habitus, which
structure consumption patterns to produce competing categories of fashioned femininity. Distance and discriminations between classes of individuals become increasingly
perceptible when the emotions surrounding fashion consumption experiences are
unraveled.
Keywords
emotion, emotional capital, fashion consumption, habitus, social class relations
Introduction
The nature of consumers emotional involvement in self-fashioning practice provides a fascinating cite for exploring how the relationship between social class
Corresponding author:
Karen Rafferty, Room 2-091, School of Retail and Services Management, The Dublin Institute of Technology,
Aungier Street, Dublin 2, Ireland
Email: Karen.Rafferty@dit.ie
240
McRobbie argues that it has now become a standard feature of womens lives to
attempt to make correct choices to prevent them from falling into the shadows of
a set of elitist social relations. Within these relations, a lifestyle is operationalised
where beauty and stylization are admired and advocated unequivocally. In fact,
McRobbie (2008: 174) explains that the right to be part of the beautiful life is propagated by arbitrators of good taste as being almost an entitlement. Women are
encouraged to maintain themselves within a spotlight of social visibility, perpetuated as a luminous and glamorous space, which ultimately has the eect of a dramatisation of the individual, a kind of spectacularisation of feminine subjectivity
(McRobbie, 2008: 174). For the participants on this show, being transformed into a
spectacular female and feeling worthy and able to cope with the attention of others
enables them to participate in social relationships and activities they felt previously
denied to them. One stark negative consequence, however, is that their capacity to
maintain their transformed image, and the enhanced psycho-aective state they
experience with it, tends to be relatively short lived once they are without the help
of their advisors. These borrowed practices, and cultural capital, eventually conict
Rafferty
241
with their more deeply ingrained lower-class habitual tendencies, as well as the
nancial and practical constraints that their social position imposes on them.
McRobbies insights (2005; 2008) illuminate that emotion within social relations
is clearly a vital part of the fashion consumption process. Investigations into the
allure of fashion should indeed take heed of the role of socially-constructed emotions. Although consumerism has been clearly linked in consumer research to emotion, few researchers have successfully conceptualized the social nature of emotion
to explore the role it plays in maintaining boundaries between groups of consumers. Immersed within the existing literature on consumption and material relations are references to many of the emotions involved in fashion consumption
processes. The literature speaks of the concerns, anxieties and fears experienced
over ones personal appearance and the reactions of others to it (see for examples,
Englis and Solomon, 1997; Park and Burns, 2005: 135; Roux and Korchia, 2006:
32). Also mentioned in the literature are the forms of desire that drive consumption, such as the desire for uniqueness (Roux and Korchia, 2006: 312) or simply
an irrational desire (Elliott, 1997), the arousal and passion involved in the consumption of certain objects (Redden and Steiner, 2000: 326) and self-esteem
(Banister and Hogg, 2004). And, of course, condence (Roux and Korchia, 2006:
31), which has a signicant connection. However, despite continual references to
emotions there remains a notable gap in using social theory on class to locate
precisely where those emotions stem from, why they have emerged, how they are
linked to social class position and how they work to stimulate particular consumption practices. Emotional states are also commonly misconstrued within the consumption literature and too often they are framed as abstract and randomly
occurring, without any attempt to adequately situate those emotional states
within a psycho-social context.
Other studies have recognized that emotions often stem from competitive forms
of social relations (Thompson and Haytko, 1997; Roux and Korchia, 2006;
Workman and Studak, 2007). Yet there is still a notable gap in consumer research
in terms of linking the emotions surrounding the consumption process to explanations of how agency unfolds within the social structures. What is more, there is a
tendency in this body of literature to regard emotions as a mere by-product of the
more prevalent issues when explaining fashion consumption behaviours (Bordo,
1997; Delhaye, 2006). For example, Bordo (1997) portrays female consumers as a
passive audience who fall prey to the persuasive ideological messages being disseminated by the capitalist industry. The emotional content of decision-making
processes in the consumption of body fashions receives limited attention in what
becomes an obfuscated critique of industry agents. And, as researchers across the
disciplines of sociology and consumer behaviour have stressed, consumers are not
simply malleable, passive dupes that culture industry professionals can readily
manipulate (Arnould and Thompson, 2005; Dolan, 2009; Gabriel and Lang,
1995). In sum, very little research to-date has focused on the relationship between
class relations, emotion, consumption and senses of well-being. This article
242
endeavours to contribute towards bridging this void and expanding the existing
knowledge base in consumer literature in that respect.
Rafferty
243
244
distinction from pecuniary rarity or from elite consensus, Bourdieu argues that
cultural capital secures the respect of others through the consumption of objects
that are ideationally dicult and so can only be consumed by those few who have
acquired the ability to do so. As Warde (2007: 1) outlines much judgment is tacit,
recorded in and expressed through peoples possessions, learning experiences, comportment and accumulated cultural competence. Ideational alignment is not
simple and straightforward, and this is what fosters and conserves class-based
senses of belonging.
Those tacit understandings also extend to gender expectations and can lead to
intense scrutiny and criticisms of physical appearances. Bourdieu (1984) argues that
rather than assuming all individuals of a certain gender or age experience and behave
in similar ways, it is imperative to analyse the divisions and variations which the
secondary variables (sex, age etc.) bring into the class. As both Bourdieu (1984) and
Entwistle (2000: 52) explain, the concept of gender is enmeshed with that of class,
peer group and occupation because gender is perceived and constituted dierently by
those variables, depending upon the social context in which they operate. According
to Bourdieu (1984: 1078):
Sexual properties are as inseparable from class properties as the yellowness of a lemon
is from its acidity: a class is dened in an essential respect by the place and value it
gives to the two sexes and to their socially constituted dispositions. This is why there
are as many ways of realizing femininity as there are classes and class fractions.
Entwistle (2000: 52) agrees with Bourdieu, but takes this argument a stage further by explaining that codes of gender vary enormously, depending on other
factors that may be operating in any given context including, for example, the
peer group and occasion. Bourdieu (1984: 103) gives an account of gender which
proposes that variables, such as sex and age, create divisions and variations of
tastes and practices within each class. This stresses the importance of understanding each womans experience of femininity and their conceptions of ideal forms of
femininity as related to their position, their age and their subsequent experiences in
the social world. By viewing femininity in this way, within the context of this
investigation, it is conceptually explained as a nexus of culturally institutionalized
meanings and practices, with dierent strands being more readily accepted and
advocated, while others are ardently contested, within dierent social milieu.
Bourdieus work (1984) has demonstrated the illusory widespread acceptance of
superior or rened taste as that which is legitimized by the dominant groups who
hold societal power and advantageous lifestyles. It also demonstrates how people
who can learn to understand and appreciate these superior cultural norms can
potentially use taste to obtain more power for themselves (as the example of
modern-day style advisors illuminates). In this respect, agents can strategically
place themselves into positions of advantage in the games of culture (Bourdieu,
1984: 12). The sanctication of good taste, however, is always a matter of contention. It carries political connotations because class fractions with less advantages
Rafferty
245
246
Emotions can be understood as central to human behaviour because they condition our experiences (by limiting, modifying or enhancing them), substantiate the
belief systems we uphold, and are an inherent aspect of all human action. Illouz
(2009: 382) contends that the concept of emotion usefully explains how consumption is anchored in cognition and culture (beliefs and evaluations) on the one hand,
and in the motivational structure of drives within the body (aect) on the other.
She explains that while emotion is not action per se, it is what orients and implicates the self in its social environment. It is both what gives a particular certain
mood or coloration to an particular act, and the inner energy that propels us
toward that act (p. 382). Culturally-specic practices, such as fashion consumption, thus can be understood as being aligned with specic emotional tendencies
(habitualizations). What is particularly interesting to examine here is how particular types of emotional habitus develop and with what social consequences, particularly in respect of consumption experiences. Ones conditions of existence can
either provide advantages and fortitude or set in places tensions and deep-rooted
stresses that then play a key role in inuencing how the relationships we have with
others unfold. Those conditions of our existence become embodied in an emotional
sense as we relate to, and make sense of, the social world around us and our
position within it.
In line with Illouz (2007; 2009), Reay (2005), and Hughes (2007), I contend
that the term emotion should not be referred to as purely psychological,
as though it were something disembodied or a-social. Our emotional tendencies
also come to be heavily shaped by the environment(s) that we grow up in. This is
perhaps most particularly as a consequence of whether we develop close or distant
relationships with others where we feel cared for and supported. In respect to this,
Reay (2004) puts forward the concept of emotional capital, which she describes as
the positive emotional resources, such as love, devotion, support and understanding that parents and elders invest in children in an eort to equip them with
advantages in their life. It is important to highlight that such emotional investments
are highly likely to have a signicant impact upon the childs psycho-aective
development, and specically in terms of self-worth. Following from Bourdieus
conceptualization of habitus more generally, emotional habitus, can be understood
as the development of a set of emotional tendencies or dispositions, that are crucially inuenced by others with whom we interact over the course of our lived
trajectories. It fundamentally shapes our understandings of ourselves and others,
as well as our aspirations and instincts towards certain behaviours. According to
Illouz (2007: 667);
. . . as Bourdieu has suggested (without theorizing it), modes and codes of cultural
evaluation have an emotional style or tonality (as when Bourdieu refers to detachment or to participatory identication). Ones emotional attitudes and style, like
ones cultural taste, denes ones social identity. It is social because emotions are the
very stu of which social interactions are made and transformed. If cultural capital is
crucial as a status signal, emotional style is crucial to how people acquire networks,
Rafferty
247
both strong and weak, and build what sociologists call social capital, that is, the ways
in which personal relationships are converted into forms of capital, such as career
advancement or increased wealth.
Reay (2004; 2005) and Illouz (2007: 67) suggest that intimate and cherished
relationships, as cultural and social resources, help people to achieve a sense of
well being. It is important, therefore, to inquire about how practices of self-fashioning, as a symbolic form of cultural consumption, can grant access to such spheres
of well being by facilitating or negating social connections and, certainly in some
cases, a sense of meritocracy. If we are to consider Sayers (2005) understanding of
the social basis of emotions, our perceptions of how we are being treated and
rewarded as compared to others when we are growing up is fundamental to the
type of emotional inclinations we develop as part of our habitus. I argue that social
class remains particularly important to consider in the context of fashion consumption today because it continues to create unequal possibilities for ourishing. This
occurs for example, by enhancing feelings of self-worth and intensifying experiences of existing for some and then, for others, disproportionate amounts of suffering by producing or arming beliefs about inferiority where self-worth is fragile.
The next sections will detail an exploration into how the emotional styles and
dispositions of the middle class fractions intersect with consumption practices to
ultimately aect consumers state of well being. Informed by Wardes (2005: 143)
call for researchers to investigate the internal psychic rewards derived from competently engaging in a specic consumption practice, it searches for instances of
both positive and negative psycho-aective outcomes from varying levels of
involvement in fashion consumption. Middle-class existence is an interesting site
for exploration of class-based emotions because of its position within the social
structures. Middle class fractions neither enjoy the economic and social security
which typies a privileged existence, though nor are they anchored to the same
extent by the constraints of necessity experienced by the working and under-class
fractions. Many people within the middle classes thus nd themselves at the epicentre of competitive social living. The analysis in the next sections draws upon
data derived from interviews with 21 Irish women about their current fashion
consumption practices and recollections of fashion-related experiences over the
course of their trajectories. Women of a young adult age range between 20
and 35 were chosen as this social group tends to be the most heavily targeted
segment by the fashion industry. For the purpose of having diversity within
the sample, women were recruited from across the three fractions of uppermiddle, mid-middle and lower-middle class status. Middle class status was
determined largely by occupation or, in the case of students, by their fathers
and/or mothers occupation(s).1
An understanding of each womans position at origin was arrived at by obtaining information about their parents occupational status over the course of their
lives, both within interviews and through a brief pre-interview questionnaire, while
her position at arrival was also obtained through these processes. The goal of data
248
Rafferty
249
background, demonstrates one aspect of smart shopping practice through her fervent devotion to sale shopping. Suzy oozes self-condence and has a vibrant attitude to life. Because of her resolute sense of self-assurance she happily labels herself
as the bargain queen and relates, with great pride, humorous stories centred upon
her ability to nd high-valuable fashion items (principally designer pieces) at a
fraction of the original cost. In one particular recollection, she describes the serious high she experienced upon nding the greatest bargain ever:
S: . . . it was years ago and we were looking at the Gucci section (. . .) I just thought Oh
my God, thats just the most beautiful skirt ever. Oh, I wish I could have that skirt!
But then! Literally about six or seven months later, [the store] were having a sale, this
is when I would have been really like dedicated to it [laughs], and it was the end of the
end of the sale. The drags (. . .) And, um, I was going through and [pause] I saw the
Gucci skirt. And it was . . . in a really large size (. . .) and I just thought the skirt didnt
look that big. And it was at a time, back then, when people used to wear skirts quite
low on their hips . . . and because of the kind of shape of the skirt I kind of thought
Well you know what? Maybe I can take it in or (. . .) I think its cause everyone would
have gone either they would have been a size fourteen and thought Ill try it on and
it didnt t, and they just put it back on the rail. Or they were a size eight or ten and
looked at it and thought Thats far too big for me, I wont bother. (. . .) I was just like
Ill just see does it t. . . and it did! [laughs loudly] And I was just . . . on a high! (. . .)
just like, serious high (. . .) It was a hundred pounds . . . down from over a thousand.
And [laughs] I remember like leaving Brown Thomas like clutching the bag going Oh
my God, checking to see is it still in there? [laughs] Going Oh my God, I got it! (. . .)
so that was probably the greatest ever bargain.
All of Suzys fashion-related narratives are steeped in senses of thrill, anticipation, exhilaration and the fun that she recalls from the time of her consumption
experiences. Suzy is an avid shopper with a busy work and social life and it is
obvious that one key function of fashion consumption for her is to add excitement
to her life, thus keeping her far removed from a monotonous existence. The thrill
she describes in the previous extract is derived from her eort to align her selffashioning standards more closely with that of the most privileged class fractions of
society. Suzy relates that such treasured nds are a common outcome of her
shopping expeditions. Like Suzy, the other women who discussed smart shopping
practices were of an upper-middle class status. These women have found a route
through which they feel they can buy themselves into the upper social class taste
distinctions that would otherwise have been denied to them. The thrill is thus
connected to the associated sense of elevation they feel within the taste hierarchy
for self-fashioning practice. It comes, however, at a cost of being slightly out of step
with the most current fashion trends. Restraint is also an important issue here.
Suzy consciously maintains a strict control over any urges she has to buy items
when they catch her attention so that she conserves her nances for smart purchases. This practice, she explains, ensures that her wardrobe is full of things that
250
she loves to wear, as opposed to rubbish, thus increasing her prospects of always
feeling good about herself in what she is wearing.
With regards to internal rewards, for smart shoppers such practice enables them
to feel elevated from other middle class consumers because they perceive that they
are getting the maximum benet out of their money spent, where investments made
go towards achieving high standards of luxe self-fashioning. However, while Suzy
gets emotional rewards from smart shopping practice, interestingly she does not
become overly attached to any items. This becomes apparent when Suzy tells about
how, after a very bad re in her house, she lost most of her clothes:
S: (. . .) A lot of them had to go. Shoes and bags a lot of them were kind of sitting
under my cupboard sort of they were all smoke damaged, so they were all gone.
I: Oh, I see, of course. And how was that for you?
S: Well yeah [laughs], I guess thats a big . . . fashion disaster moment! Em, well it was
Tuesday. It was . . . it was a bit hard cause I was like Oh, I lost that Mark ONeill
skirt that I really loved and I lost that vintage handbag that I really loved but
then . . . [voice becomes lively] I realised the good side of it. That I had this amazing
opportunity to go shopping completely guilt free. [laughs] So like you know the way
sometimes youre like I dont really need this. I shouldnt really do it. I shouldnt
really buy it [laughs]. I had no guilt. I could just walk into Brown Thomas and just go
I have to buy that dress cause I dont have one and I have to buy those boots cause
I dont have any. So that was great . . . and eventually I got back the insurance money
anyway.
I: Of course, yeah.
S: So [laughs] that insurance money should have, you know, could have gone on other
things and stu, but I literally, you know, I functionally needed clothes. So I had a
really good time shopping [laughs].
Suzys emotional investment in fashion items is low, signied by how she recalls
overcoming the loss she felt relatively quickly, essentially though knowing that she
had the means available to rebuild her wardrobe with ease. In fact, this new project
presented new exciting opportunities for her to re-position with higher standards of
self-fashioning practice because it enabled her to redesign her apartment and build
herself a walk-in wardrobe with a whole new set of clothes. This walk-in wardrobe
is now a management system for her to see where the gaps are and further simplify
her smart shopping decision-making processes. Suzy exhibits an obvious pride in
her fashion consumption skill set, which she has established, in part, from her
educational background and training in fashion textiles at a prestigious college,
and also from going straight into employment as an interior designer at her fathers
architectural rm. However, her understanding of her capacity to make rened
Rafferty
251
aesthetic choices centres on her rm belief that she has a natural (innate) love and
understanding of the artistic dimension of fashion and design. She understands that
her fashion choices are based on items feeling right when she tries them on and
just knowing when she wont regret a purchase. She has a sense for fashion and,
though she admits to having learned from mistakes in the past, she attributes this
sense to her current philosophy of carefully evaluating every item before she buys
so that she feels condent she is not being duped into buying faddy fashions fashions that are destined to only have ephemeral social value.
However, through a discussion of her life trajectory, Suzy recalls that her mother
was also always very interested in fashion and particularly enjoyed dressing Suzy
up in pretty frocks from the time she was a baby. Her parents always encouraged
her creative trials with new fashions and in one instance she laughs as she recalls
how her father, unlike the fathers of her friends, would tell her she looked fabulous in short dresses as opposed to expressing disapproval. Through such disclosures in her narratives, it is evident that Suzy learned about the polarity of value in
the dierent fashion brands available, and the correlating aesthetic discrepancies
between them, from a young age. She mentions her mothers preference for taking
her time to shop while in the more expensive and aesthetically-orientated highstreet retail outlets for children, and then rushing in and out when having to shop
in the lower-cost retail stores for basic items. Rather than innate, Suzy has developed her fashion competence and smart shopping capacity in line with uppermiddle class tastes that are particular to the conditions of her existence and class
habitus trajectory. Having been socialized into practicing fashion with highly aesthetic and quality crafted items from a young age, Suzys consumption wants can
be understood to emanate from this vantage point. However, in order to maintain
her position within this practice beyond the sustenance of her parents, and to
consistently achieve intense emotional highs through fashion consumption, she
now tends to shop in high-end boutiques or department stores during their seasonal
sales, as well as in discount retail outlet where she can nd treasure amongst the
rubbish.
Women learn how to practice self-fashioning in dierent ways and develop
attitudes towards it in accordance with their class positions and, of course, their
capacity to practice. As Holt (1998) indicated previously, women who are higher in
cultural capital resources may be more inclined to place signicant value on protecting their sense of individuality with their fashioned appearance. The smart
shopping strategies of accomplished middle class fashion consumers certainly reinforce this suggestion. For the same reason it is important to understand the nature
of their emotional engagement with self-fashioning practices. For accomplished
middle class fashion consumers, the overriding objective is to legitimize, maintain
and protect their own position within broader cultural practices of self-fashioning.
For this reason, shopping alone was expressed (almost exclusively) as their preference. Though many of the women avoided openly admitting it was to prevent
copycats threatening their individuality, and hence their capacity to attain those
elevating feelings centred around specialness, sexiness or glamorousness, some
252
did hint around such a suggestion. Aligning their practices with the objective of
individuality elevates their sense of legitimacy in distinctly elitist relations. Yet also
crucial to the legitimate status of accomplished smart shoppers is the relative ease
with which they can consistently make choices outside of what is obvious or typical
in terms of fashion trends (ideationally dicult preferences). Such ease is aorded
to accomplished fashion consumers through a long term close relation with highend fashion culture, as can be seen in the development of Suzys fashion consumption practices. Women learn to relate to self-fashioning practice a practice of
choosing in disparate ways depending on their class position at origin, their
related trajectory development (experiences), and the emotional capital bestowed
to them.
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253
underpin the dierent types and levels of emotional gratication demanded by different classes of consumers. In line with Thompson and Haytkos (1997) ndings,
the interview data here indicates that the meanings surrounding practices of selffashioning and forms of fashion consumption are very much disputed among
women from dierent class backgrounds, who do so with the intention of serving
their own group interests. While the notion of being fashionable was perceived as a
favourable label used by women with less cultural capital, the same marker was
considered to be highly undesirable for those with more cultural capital and expansive tastes. Smart shoppers, with more cultural capital, saw it as representing a
failure to participate at the forefront of fashion trends, or else as indicative of
ones ignorance that consuming classic styles of fashion (quality) was preferable
to superuous and ephemeral fads (quantity). Instead, spending money wisely on
pieces that will have longevity in the structures of taste was seen as a marker of
distinction (i.e. the consumption of elitist [luxury] brands was of paramount importance). Natalie, a 24-year-old fashion student comes from a privileged upper-middle
class position. She positions herself as an accomplished fashion consumer and, in
detail, outlines her penchant for the good stu. While describing her consumption
tastes and practices she infers that she can aord to buy the more expensive fashion
items and, in particular, situates dominant designer fashion items as superior. Less
directly, she expresses a dismissive attitude towards high-street items, maintaining
that they are fun but to throwaway by the end of the season rather than valuing
them in any signicant way. She demonstrates here her unquestioned acceptance
that luxury or designer items are hierarchically superior (assumed via their quality
and design properties), and self-classication as an elitist consumer in so far as the
objects substanialize her connection to elitist relations. Natalie implies that the
good stu provides greater fullment in terms of self-esteem because, in the sets
of social relations that she engages within, they are recognized as unequivocally
rened. At the same time, upon examining Natalies level of emotional engagement
towards self-fashioning practice, she displays a nonchalant attitude to the practice
of self-fashioning and, while she clearly appreciates the benets of it, her self-worth
does not appear to be deep rooted in it:
N: I think you can carry o anything if you have the attitude to match. People pick up
a lot on body language and how you present yourself. Like if youre standing with
your head held high, clearly not giving a crap what anybody else thinks, and if you
think you look attractive . . . I always think that going to rub o on other people.
Other people are going to be like She does look attractive. Like theyll see
past . . . theyll see past what the person is wearing, theyll see the person. Like clothes,
I think, are only ever an enhancement as opposed to . . . I think thats the epitome of
style to me, is when you notice the woman, not the dress. Thats when fashions doing
its job. Not when you notice the dress, not the woman.
254
Though her preference for elitist fashions is clear, she does not attribute her ownership of objects as the primary reason for her pride in her personal appearance.
Her condence in her economic, social and cultural competence enables her to be
above fashions and have a more complacent attitude to her fashioned appearance
should she so desire. For her, attractiveness in appearance is not entirely about
possessing certain objects, though this helps, but is more a feat of ones charismatic
capacity to look good in anything. Here, her social position is embodied and
realized through her sense of condence. She asserts that fashion should not be
entirely masquerade and she expresses here that she is unlikely to feel wounded
should the threat of ridicule or condescension from others over what she wears ever
occur. When comparing herself to other girls at school, she claimed to know when
others pretended their fake handbags were real and assumed this signied their
positional insecurities essentially chasing a position and habitus that was beyond
their reach. While less detrimental than other more blatant displays of class antagonism or symbolic violence, these psycho-aective dimensions remain fundamental
to the unequal politics of fashion as a form of cultural consumption and important
element of aspirational lifestyles.
Natalies low emotional investment in fashion stands in stark contrast to
Charlotte, who demonstrates a signicantly divergent attitude towards the importance of fashion in her life. Charlotte comes from a lower-middle class position and
takes the consumption of high-street items far more seriously, primarily because
the lower prices are fundamental to her capacity to keep up with the social
demands for regular revision in her fashioned appearance. In the next extract
she reveals how her spending habits got out of control as a result of her perception
about how important it was to participate in fashion consumption at a relatively
high frequency:
C: . . . the other girls . . . they just couldnt believe that every single lunchtime I would
be running the whole way [to the high-street shopping area]. Like its a twenty
minute walk there and a twenty minute walk back . . . and Id go every single day
just to have twenty minutes of shopping because thats how important it was to me
to know what was in the shops. And no, I wouldntnecessarily buy something, but
Id say eight times out of ten I would (. . .) it was getting to the stage where in my
cycle [referring to income per month] I was kind of out. When it was coming to
payday . . . like I was in serious trouble in the last week of every month. And honestly, like I havent even admitted this to anyone, I was spending three-quarters of
my wages just on clothes (. . .) I had considerable debt for a while there just because
of clothes. My main priority in life was for about two years there, when I rst
started work . . . I had to have a new outt like head-to-toe every single time I went
out (. . .) every single time I went out. And it did get really ridiculous, to the point of
I wouldnt wear something twice, yknow? (. . .) Ive accumulated so much stu. And
that scares me to think that I . . . Now when I look at the house and I look at all the
other priorities that I have in life, Im like What was it that its so important
to me?
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255
Its clear that self-fashioning took on a very intense role in Charlottes life for
a number of years when she found herself in a position of earning a substantial
income for the rst time, while still living at home she had few nancial responsibilities, which meant she could participate in fashion consumption at a relatively
high level of engagement. She explains that her purchases mainly centred on highstreet items because spending large sums on designer items would restrict her
consistent appearance revisions through new items. Her emotional investment
was high as these revisions in appearance became fundamental for her to condently participate in the social competition of living it large (Hesmondhalgh,
2008) and position herself above her friends in this cultural practice. She started
to take the development of her fashion competence very seriously as it increasingly protected her sense of well being. This seriousness can be connected to her
distinctly middle middle class position and compounded by the fact that she was
not able to participate in fashion until she began to earn a substantial income in
her twenties. In the next extract, Charlotte recalls her rst opportunity to avidly
participate in self-fashioning after spending a summer working and living in
America:
C: . . . in college all I wore was jeans, and tops, and runners because I still didnt have
enough money (. . .) But then the following summer I went to Nantucket (. . .) we
couldnt spend money in Nantucket, it was too expensive to spend money there, we
clocked up thousands earning money there (. . .) and I went and met my mum in New
York that summer. I had never been to New York, and I came home from that
summer and I had so many of these individual pieces (. . .) I came home with loads.
And thats when that started then my wardrobe of these dierent pieces. And when I
came back from that year I remember everyone kind of saying to me every day Jesus,
look at the style of you!. And that kind of set me o then.
256
others she describes feeling psychotic when she recognizes she must abstain from
fashion consumption in order to save for a mortgage boyfriend. This is then followed by more reective admissions of feeling guilt-ridden and ashamed at her
overly indulgent patterns of spending beyond her means.
The anxiety and depressive mood here expressed in Charlottes latter narrative
can be understood as class-based because it is referring to her feeling deated and
out of depth while chasing an aspirant habitus. For Charlotte, this anxiety manifests as she frantically tries to accumulate an immense number of fashion items
that she hopes will be useful props to facilitate her consistent appearance alterations. Natalie, on the other hand, is clearly comfortable in her (fashioned) habitus
of entry. Through intense autodidactic processes and full immersion into fashion
consumption, it appears that Charlotte was trying to emulate the cultural capital of
others who consistently revise their appearance with greater ease. In trying to be
condent in herself and allay class anxiety via intense fashion consumption practices, she eventually came up against overwhelming barriers of nancial inability,
which produced considerable psycho-aective distress. While being so engrossed in
maintaining her position within the practice of self-fashioning, Charlotte was also
blind sighted to her friends plans to purchase properties. Once they began to live
independently from their parents, the psycho-aective elevations Charlotte derived
from fashion became hugely overshadowed and forced the recognition of the reality of her positional constraints. She has since decided that she should have been
more conscious to save money in order for herself and her boyfriend to move on to
the next stage in their relationship (living together). She experiences guilt as a
consequence of her self-indulgent consumption habits and shame for her ignorance
of the realities of the nancial constraints placed upon her, disabling her from
living it large in all aspects of her lifestyle. In turn, this brings about a dramatic
change in her consumption practice (from buying every week to only on special
occasions) and prevents her from splurging. At this point there is a denitive clash
between her class-based aspirations for a personalized feminine identity and an
unquestioned responsibility to nurture her boyfriend by building their home. Some
middle class women participate in projects of individual self-creation in an attempt
to actualize their self-evaluations as positive vis-a`-vis other and interpret self-fashioning practices as critical to those projects (see Hesmondhalgh, 2008: 333 for a
similar argument regarding music acionados). However, in many cases such
eorts are likely to clash with their class habitus, depending on whether their
spending habits are in line with the realities of the nancial constraints placed
upon them. The psycho-aective discomfort experienced as a result diers depending on class position. In Charlottes case, while her consumption practices are now
far more restrained, she admits that at rst the experience left her feeling very
agitated, distressed and depressed. Chasing an aspirant habitus became all consuming because the boosts to esteem that she experienced helped shelter her more
fragile sense of self-worth, enabling her to ourish socially, but which was hit
hard when she acknowledged the nancial limits that hamper her lifestyle
aspirations.
Rafferty
257
Discussion
In this article I have argued that more attention needs to be paid to the emotions
surrounding self-fashioning practices. Self-fashioning is practiced in numerous
ways and so it is useful to conceptualize it by applying a more overt emotional
dimension to Bourdieus theory of practice amongst social relations. The work of
Illouz (2007; 2009) and Reay (2004) provide useful extensions by situating emotions within a class-based framework. The nature of the emotions experienced by
consuming agents occurs dierently depending on how their class habitus and
cultural competence enables them to interact in dierent sets of social relations.
Ultimately these emotions then play a central role in prompting fashion consumption desires, distastes, choices and behaviours of dierent class groups.
Conceptualizing fashion consumerism as a mechanism that operates within the
psychic and emotional landscape of social relations, it can be seen to facilitate a
space of social relations where class discrimination actively continues, though now
in less perceptible and more nuanced modes based upon how practices of selffashioning occur rather than purely though the possession of branded objects.
Self-fashioning practice thus remains as a tool of distinction, identication and
segregation for social collectivities.
The emphasis of this study was on conceptualization and reaching understanding rather than generalization. As the exploration of this area is in its initial stages,
a small, yet in-depth empirical study was considered to be the best means by which
to draw out the main themes and concentrate on theory building. Examining how
consumption practices interconnect with emotional tendencies pushes research
questions towards asking about the variety of practices that are prevalent, what
consumption strategies people are engaging in and why, about the level of commitment to the practice they display and about the type of psycho-aective dimensions underpinning that level of engagement. These questions work towards a fuller
understanding of how and why consumers are prioritizing their consumption
choices in the ways that they do. It can thus add not only to understandings of
how class-based emotions structure consumption practices, but can also add insight
to research which seek to understand how and why some modes of consumption
can become obsessive and irrational. According to Illouz (2007), people use consumption as a means to connect to others and so we should analyze the social
relationships that consumption practices facilitate as moral goods in which the
content of selfhood and well-being are at stake (p. 678). She suggests that by
reversing the Bourdieusian model we can inquire about the ways in which certain
classes or class fractions tend to socialize their children towards a certain type of
emotional habitus, which in turn will help them reach particular forms of eudaimonia (happiness, inner condence). By focusing primarily upon the psycho-social
aliations and contagions that uctuate between the appearance ideals and consumption practices of discordant, and often competitive, class fractions, new
insight is brought to explain the relationship between self-fashioning practice,
female identity, emotions and social class relations today. This article attempts
258
Notes
1. Class relations may not typically be a context that is reflexively employed by individuals
to comprehend their own sense of self, or to question why they act in the ways that they
do (Savage et al., 2001). However, the conditions that structure a persons existence, in
terms of the restrictions on the composition of capitals possessed, can prove to be in
varying ways psychologically and emotionally damaging or advantageous (Reay, 2004;
2005).
2. An interview guide was developed to elicit peoples understandings and evaluations of
different modes of self-fashioning via the consumption of diverse brands and objects,
styles of body presentation and the ways in which their own approach to making consumption choices has developed over their life course. Interviewees were asked to recall
the memories they had surrounding their fashion consumption experiences and were
encouraged to show me any fashion items or photos that held some kind of significance
(either positive or negative) for them. Questions probed for details regarding their understanding of fashion, their stylistic preferences, consumption strategies and the recall of
particular episodes across a variety of life stages and situations (for example, as a child; as
a teenager; when working; with family, friends or when alone; during the week as compared to at the weekends; when attending special events, such as weddings) to elicit as
much detail as possible.
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Karen Raerty is a PhD scholar at the Dublin Institute of Technology and lectures
in fashion sociology and consumer behaviour for the college of business. Her
research interests lie in the areas of consumption trends, emotions in consumption,
sociology and the psychic landscape of social class relations.