Raphaëlle Bénard MA Fashion and the Environment
Obscure Object of
Desire
Issue n°1
UT $4.50 ET $5.00
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March, 2012
We see shoes everyday around us, no need to read magazines or browse the shops. Shoes are a highly metaphorical object... But what do we see of shoes in our daily life?
Edito: Echoing Helen Storey and Francis McGlone’s project “Wisdom of Desire”, the class of MA Fashion and the Environment was split up in teams of four to five students to work on the concept of a shoe which would be highly desirable and very sustainable. Under the direction of Emily Pascoe, head designer, the team I joined decided to work on a shoe that will be highly desirable because it will make the wearer desirable. Emily wanted to base her project on a very experimental method and had the specific wish of designing for every woman. So we set up our field research and head out in the real world to meet some real women and discuss their ideas of a shoe. In the mean time, we were assigned a personal work and on my behalf, I was intrigued since the very first words during the presentation of “Wisdom of Desire”. Can you really be addicted to shoes? Was it not more of two problems in one: a inability to control the urge of buying and a hoarding type of behavior. To me, being addicted to an object was quite questionable because of the lack of introduction of addictive substances in the body. Nonetheless, I took their word for it and decided to focus my attention on something I knew a little about and I knew how to find answers. My research come from a single memory of a holiday at my friend’s family home. Her two year old nice, barely familiar with me, kept on trying all the shoes I had brought with me. She is not the only one to have done so and I myself, as a little sister, have had a lot of go in this kind of test. So I decided to explore the roots of this liking that every woman seems to demonstrate when it come to shoes. And here are presented the results of my reflexions and research.
Content: Hello, I am a woman and I am addicted to shoes Myth or reality, can human be addicted to an object?
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Shoes, the new found symbol of womanliness
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How does it feel walking in your shoes
Results of a field investigation on the psychological representation of young women when it comes to shoes p.6
Researching for designers
reflective piece on a theorist work in a shoe design team
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Front Cover: “the little black shoe” Back Cover: “After the party” Concept: Raphaëlle Bénard Photography: Matt Carter
Hello, I am a woman and I am addicted to shoes! Beyond any cliché on the matter, there is a legitimate question to be asked. An addiction to shoes implies gaining access to the object of desire, our case through a purchase in a shop. Can we actually become addicted to buying? More precisely, can we be addicted to the purchase of a specific object? How is it different from being a collector then? And finally, can we talk of shoes as a good with potential for addiction? The phenomenon of addiction is quite complex in itself. In his article “Addiction –and the rational choice”, Per Halvor Vale defines it as “when […] certain substances or services take control of the individual and displaces behaviour that best serves the individual interests.” (Vale, 2010: 38) The word is commonly used to refer to the excessive use of drugs or alcohol. However, we can see here that Vale also includes services in the potential objects of addiction. Another source, “a theory of natural addiction” by Trenton G. Smith and Attila Tasnádi, points out the fact that the body naturally produces opiates (endogenous opioids). Their original purpose was to prove that addiction is actually embedded in our biological system and might have existed since the early hours of life on Earth. The symptoms of the effect of opiates they describe are euphoria, pain relief and appetite stimulation. Does it not match the description of an amazing shopping spree? One final author, Jonathan Chapman, in his book Emotionally Durable Design, reminds the tight connection between life and consumption. Indeed, the very survival of any living creature depends on consumption, starting with the air they breathe and the food they eat (Chapman, 2005: 29-30). If Vale’s definition is applied, speculation of addiction to consumption of objects becomes possible. Sales service takes control over the individual and makes him act out of the ordinary in terms of purchase behavior. Vale also talks of addiction coming from the fact that the user knows he will get comfort from the use. Smith and Tasnádi reinforce the idea by quoting Gul and Pesendorfer and referring to their finding that past-consumption of an addictive good makes a person more prone to over-consume the good
in the future. It is in the end a question of habit forming. From the biological point of view, addiction is connected to associative learning. Another name for it would be conditioned stimuli. So in other words, addictions are learned, consciously or not. There is no need to mention that consuming is central in today’s world. Western civilization became a growth–driven culture and it is no surprise if, on the contrary of what is assumed by economists and their rational choice theory1 , the research of pleasure in consuming exists. Biologically speaking, addiction starts with this research of pleasure and goes on to avoid the withdrawal syndrome’s effects (Vale, 2010). However, if addiction to consuming is possible, can shoes be called an “intoxicant good”? Traditionally intoxicant goods are known to not activate the frontal cortex as much as other goods. This diminishes the cognitive reflection on the consequences of the use. With object purchase, there is no introduction of such substances in the body. Smith and Tasnádi raise the idea that “addiction might indeed be related to problems with selfcontrol, to emotional mechanisms, and to false beliefs” (Smith and Tasnádi, 2007: 334). While the team of Pr. Francis McGlone is actually researching the neurology of the problem, an element of answer could be found in the field of psychoanalysis. In his presentation of the project “Wisdom of Desire”, Pr. McGlone mentions the dopamine released in the body during the neurological reward system. Among rewarding experiences, food, drugs and sex take the top of the list. According to Lacan in his talk “Démontage de la pulsion ”2 in 1964, every urge is connected to an erogenous zone of the body. Feet are one of those. They are infamous in 1The rational choice theory states that “the consumer acts to maximize his utility”. (Vale, 2010: 39) 2 “Dismantling the urge”
that matter because of fetishist behaviors yet comfort in footwear could actually occasion a dopamine release that creates an addiction. In other words: yes, shoes could definitely be a good with potential for addiction on a biological point of view. The results of “Wisdom of Desire” brain scans should actually bring a more definite argument in the debate. Based on the fact that the brain response to the image is the same as the action itself, the measures obtained after the FMRI tests will show if there actually are dopamine release and if the phenomenon of addiction to shoes is a reality. The consequences of such a finding will bring the debate to another level with the question of the social acceptance of such an addiction and how to treat identified addicts.
Anne, interviewee of the project “Deconstructing Construction”, developed a ritual of buying a pair of Converse every year
Beyond all the scientific information that is still to be found, there is something about shoes in pop-culture that feels almost like an obsession. Whoever takes an interest in pop-culture has come across the phenomenon. The name is Chick Lit and if there is an object of worship that is common to all the books which files under this genre, it is shoes. This literary trend started with Bridget Jones’ Diary publication in 1996 and became very popular in the following years. In 2002, it brought $71millions to the publishing industry. ‘Why is it successful?’ and ‘is it meant to last?’ are not the questions asked here. Chick Lit is considered here because of the picture of modern women it draws and because shoes are a recurring protagonist. Author Cathy Yardley published a guide to writing Chick Lit. She states there that “(the) primary job is to entertain” (Yardley, 2006: 5) or that world renown Sex and the City “became a smash hit by projecting what reading audiences already loved about Chick Lit: pop culture, high fashion, urban settings, and women they could relate to.” (Yardley, 2006: 8) The most interesting thing about Yardley’s book is actually the title: Will write for shoes. Furthermore, in her description of the main characters, the attributes of the gay best-friend is that the heroin “(…) can go shoe shopping with them (…)” (Yardley, 2006). She later calls the third chapter “Baby needs a new pair of shoes” (Yardley, 2006: 97). Finally, on the back cover, a critic from Alisa Kwitney (author of the Dominant Blonde) says: “(…) Like a pair of heels you can actually dance in, this book is a keeper”. The object is everywhere. When Caroline J. Smith describes the cover of Kinsella’s Confessions of a shopaholic in her book Cosmopolitan culture and consumerism in Chick Lit, what is the clue leading to the picture of the monstrously full closet of Becky Bloomwood? A shoe. This reflection was actually triggered by two past experiences. The first one it the
Shoes: the new found symbol of womanliness
memory of reading Camilla Morton’s How to walk with high heels a few years ago. This book contained every possible tip about being feminine yet it was the high heel ordeal that was chosen to reflect the content of the entire book. The second experience is the repetitive watching of Sex and the City which beyond improving English speaking skills, served as an introduction to the most famous shoe addict in the world: Carrie Bradshaw. Carrie’s trauma after getting mugged of her Manolos in “What goes around comes around” (Season 3, Episode 47), standing up and explaining the importance of her shoes in her woman life when another pair get stolen at a baby shower in “A woman’s right to shoes” (Season 6, Episode 83) set up a brand new attitude and understanding of footwear. In her contribution to the book Reading Sex and the City, Sarah Niblock focuses on the importance of Manolo Blahnik shoes in the show. After comparing Manolos wearers to the Regency dandies, she states that those shoes are “a response to cultural and gender shift, allowing emancipated women to be attractive yet imperious and goddess-like” (Niblock in Assas, 2004: 145). She goes further on comparing Blahnik’s vision of femininity to the theory of Luce Irigaray. She thinks his shoes are a reminder to women of their own sex, reconciling the female essence with liberation and equality.
While this hypothesis could explain the omnipresence of shoes in Chick Lit, another path may be explored. In her guidelines to writing, Cathy Yardley is certainly not reluctant to describe Chick Lit heroines as modern Cinderella. Keep in mind that the main part of the story revolves around a lost glass slipper and finding the foot that fits the shoe. Yardley categorizes Chick Lit as “a subgenre of the larger classification of women’s fiction, generally of a coming-of-age or ‘coming-of-consciousness’ story where a woman’s life is transformed by the events of the story.” (Yardley, 2006: 4) In her contribution to Chick Lit: the new woman’s fiction, Jessica Lyn Van Slooten discusses the case of another Chick Lit celebrity: Becky Bloomwood. The heroin of the Shopaholic series embodies perfectly the problem and her behavior is characteristic of a need to feel a void. She keeps on buying because she does not understand that her problems are deeply rooted in herself. Van Slooten points out that Becky’s money problem is a substitute for her actual problems (Van Slooten in Ferris and Young, 2006: 223). So the second explanation for the recurring occurrence of shoes in Chick Lit would be their metaphorical interpretation. The shoe becomes the symbol of the heroin finding her place in the surrounding society. Chick Lit had to be studied here because of its potential to communicate ideas. Caroline J. Smith outlines the tight connections between Chick Lit and women’s magazines, quoting the writing of a fiction character Vivian Livingstone in Elle, In Style, Glamour and Marie Claire (Smith, 2008: 9). She exposes how the authors of Chick Lit reflect and reply to the theories from the self-help books and other manuals they use as references for their character. Chick Lit reflects the “rise of the single woman” (Yardley, 2006: 8). It is a way to access the culture of the modern women. If the psychological representation of shoes in a woman mind comes under study, this element of contemporary culture could not be left out.
How does it feel walking in your shoes? an exploration of young women’s psychological representation of shoes Following the footsteps of “Wisdom of Desire”, the shoe design project “Deconstruction Construction” based itself on a theoretical piece of research composed of a blindfolded shoe trial and the interview of a panel of 10 young women between 20 and 35 years of age. While the main purpose of the interview was to highlight elements of the shoe which deserved more attention from the designer and more general information on women’s taste in footwear, a section was added to explore the construction of the psychological representation of a shoe. This series of questions is mainly based on the exploration of memories as well as the description of a “favorite” pair of shoes. The panel being reduced to 10 women; the results presented here are speculative tendencies and cannot be considered as certitude. They would constitute however a legitimate base to start a bigger research project that would feed precious information on consumer/user behavior.
Do you have a story to tell? Why exploring childhood and memories from past years? In her essay form 1959 “Our adult world and its roots in infancy” (Klein, 1975), Melanie Klein exposes a theory about the influence of early psychological constructions in adults life. Her focus is on emotional behavior and building a capacity to feel sympathy for others, she makes interesting statements on how those things are learned by infants. Klein describes the phenomenon of projection, familiar to anybody who is interested in psychoanalysis, as the attribution of personal feelings and impulses to somebody else. While explaining this process of identification, she states that “by attributing part of our feelings to the other person, we understand their feelings, needs, and satisfactions; in other words we are putting ourselves into the other person’s shoes.” (Klein, 1975: 252-253) This metaphorical use of the shoe is very common. While reviewing literature, more than one mention of shoes
has been found in article’s title: “Why sad people like shoes better” (Eva Walter, Sophia Grigoriadis), “Discovering that the shoe fits” (Clark, Wegener, Briñol and Petty) or “How Children name objects with shoes” (Jones and Smith). They were respectively about the influence of mood on consumer attitudes; reevaluation of perception when prejudices are formed by later knowledge; and the use of shoes to suggest movement and life to differentiate type of object categorization process in young children. The interest in Melanie Klein’s work goes beyond her metaphorical use of shoes. In her essay, she demonstrates the importance of the mother as the main object in the infant inner world. The identification to the mother becomes the base for the development of the ego. The ability to identify developed in infancy is key to the ability to admire others’ character or achievement and this is why “[...] identifications derived from infancy become an important part of our personality” (Klein, 1975: 260). She also mentions the common knowledge how an adult lives his life in accordance to his parents’ model or against it. (Klein, 1975: 257) Klein later reaffirms her belief that the mother is the main object of identification and how it would be decisive in adult’s life. Why such an interest in Klein’s work with infants? The main reason is that one of presuppositions in this research was that the mother’s influence in the construction of the relationship to shoes is central. Let’s take a look in the interviews1 to see if the hypothesis verifies. 1 See the transcriptions in Appendix 1
Meet the girls: Ten young women between 20 and 35 of age agreed to tell us about their shoes. Get to know them better: Mélodie, 27 years old, is a job-seeker in the culture sector and currently works in a bookshop. She owns more than 15 pairs of shoes. Angie, 25 years old, works in Web Marketing. She owns 5 pairs of shoes. Michelle, 29 years old, is an opera singer. She also perfomrs her own songs. She owns 20 pairs of shoes. Julia, 32 years old, works in Marketing. She owns 16 pairs of shoes Jenna, 25 years old, is a student. She owns 25 pairs of shoes. Floriane, 27 years old, is a PhD student. She owns 12 pairs of shoes. Stéphane, 31 years old, works in a communication agency. She owns 33 pairs of shoes. Anne, 30 years old, is a doctor. She owns 49 pairs of shoes. Hélène, 27 years old, is education and publics officer in a museum. She owns 7 pairs of shoes. Laura, 23 years old, is a student. She owns 25 pairs of shoes... actually, make it 35 with the flip-flops! *** Floriane and Mélodie’s favorite shoes: portrait of a modern young woman?
former generation and had a look in her Grand-mother’s collection. One element of explanation for this particular taste could be girls’ most common toy, the Barbie doll. The specific shape of Barbie’s foot implies she wears at least pumps. Stéphane actually comically describes pumps in her interview as “the Barbie doll shoes”. Finally, it is interesting to record that the mother figure is absent from Angie and Hélène’s account. Their profile actually indicates that they have the smallest collections of shoes among all the interviewees. Nurture or nature, we could see here a confirmation that the influence of the mother is determining the future relationship to shoes.
Heels are for grown-ups! Stéphane and Anne share more than a flat. Altogether, they have 82 pairs of shoes for an infinity of combination.
“Where is Mummy? Mummy is in the shoe closet” When it comes to childhood memories of shoes, the figure of the mother is everywhere. First off because she is the economic power of buying and then grant or denies access to the coveted pair of shoes. On one hand, we have the example of Julia and her magic shoes, keeping them “in bed to sleep” when her mother finally agreed to buy her a pair of patent shoes. On the other hand, Jenna and Laura’s mothers became the obstacle to get “high heel” according to a 4 years old perception for the former and new shoes for the latter. In addition to this, Mum has a very strict set of rules when it comes to shoes. She does not only decide of what is appropriate to wear or not. She also says how to wear shoes. Michelle’s recollection of her white sandals and that she had to wear socks in it is one example. Stéphane’s mother due to her dis-
like of sharing shoes and the rules that follow shows a stronger potential influence here. A personal acquaintance with the interviewee allows pointing out that now as she shares a flat with fellow interviewee Anne, they actually merged their already impressive personal collection of shoes and have the use of over 80 pairs of shoes. Adult Stéphane went against Mum’s rule and now happily share footwear, concurring Klein’s theory . The mother is also a source of inspiration as Mélodie, Anne and Floriane’s account. Florian was well impressed by her mother shoe collection and as she expresses the importance of aesthetic in her choice, we could assume that those three walls in the basement where the starting point to put her taste to the test. Mélodie and Anne and their aspiration to inherit the pair of shoes show the attraction of little girls for very feminine shoes. The example of Anne is even more striking as she states that her mother’s taste were not up to her expectations so she skipped to the
The answers to the second section of the interview showed that there is a meaningful categorization of shoes by shape. Analyze of the results served the case of the heeled shoe as a symbol of femininity and its use in a context where women want to be attractive and desirable. Among the section four answers, further information to support the theory of associating the heeled shoe with femininity can be found. There are also indications that the heel in itself is a marker of aging, almost like a rite of passage. For Mélodie, it was pair of clogs, slightly heeled, when she was nine. She describes them when asked to remember her first pair of heel. Anne talks of a very similar pair she got when she was six. However she acknowledges that she bought her actual first pair of heels almost twenty years later. They both explain their passion for this pair of shoes by a feeling of adulthood in wearing them. Jenna, who was obsessed with heels since she was four, finally convinced her mother at the age of eight. Yet, here, no mention of adulthood. She is among the ones to describe her first pair of heels as disgusting. Like Julia or Anne, she reflects very poorly on her taste.
A meaningful shape categorization Following the example of Daniel Miller during his early years as an anthropologist, the results of the section two of the interview gave a chance to identify aphenomenonheobservedinIndianvillages. In Stuff (2010), he describes how he was at first clueless confronting the necessity of 50 shapes of earthenware in India. He then analyzed it in accordance to the Hindi culture and discovered that the shape and the use, the content it was destined to and the occasion was very important. Our interview
asked questions about three situations where a woman wants to feel desirable or noticed (date, job interview and public event). It showed that the heel was a constant. In the light of Miller’s work, we could conclude that heel is a meaningful shape in shoes like round and close pots are meant to contain sacred milk in India. We there witness that the context varies but human behavior when it comes to material culture is constant.
Angie’s favorite shoes are a pair of very feminine high heels. Just like Hélène, even though they don’t have many, “shoe economists” acknowledge the necessity of having them.
This could be the confirmation that the will of heel is connected with the development of femininity. Stéphane describes the phenomenon with interesting words. She wanted heels, her mother agreed for platforms: she was “elevated but not feminized”. Julia also bought herself platforms for the occasion. Since they are of the same age, we can assume there is here a fashion trend bias. They also both mention comfort a lot in their interview, Stéphane is actually adamant about emotional comfort and its ability to allow the wearer to wear any kind of shoe and look beautiful in them. It could be assumed that this empowering first pair of heel being comfortable allowed them to go through the rite of passage more easily. Michelle, who was used to heels at quite a young age because of her performing career, also provides information in that sense as she is among those who describe a pair of heeled shoes as the one she wears the most in section two of the interview. Angie and Hélène, the shoes economists, display here an interesting behavior. Among their few pairs, they both have a pair of very high and thin heels. Angie’s favorite thing about them is that they keep their shape; they look like they are worn even when they aren’t. To Hélène, it is the materialization of her aspiration to a more glamorous look, her way to keep in touch with her inner woman. It is necessary to notice that both of them picked a pair of difficult heels, quite archetypical, for their first one. Angie, especially, with her knee high black stiletto boots, could not walk in them and the story sounds probably familiar to a lot of women. Floriane is one case who seemed to have gone through the rite quite easily. Her memory of it is not very clear and it could be supposed that she was not conscious of the want of adulthood. She might have only been aesthetically attracted to them.
My first time There is a curious phenomenon occurring along the interview transcriptions. Somehow, we can find an element of the first pair of shoes described by the interviewee in their current favorite pair of shoes. The first to trigger the search was Mélodie and her specific mention of the matching ribbon laces for her green trainers. Her favorite visual element of her favorite current pair of shoes is actually the lace. This is without mentioning that she would wear trainers on a date. Angie has still a bit of glit-
ter and silver going on while Michelle still falls for the sandal type. Anne has had the tradition of buying and keeping Converse since she was sixteen so it makes sense that her choice will be Converse, in accordance to a habit developed in her younger years. Some of them are a bit more difficult to detect. Jenna has a thing for cute which started with Paddigton Bear and now settled on bow. Stéphane, on the exception of a potential match of colours, says that this first pair of shoes she remembers made a strong impression on her and she bought similar ones years after. In Hélène’s case, it is the emotional comfort and the elaboration of her ”relaxed” personality that shows through both pairs. She compares her affection for her first pair to the one you have for an old worn off sweater. She then confesses that she does not like to change pair of shoes and will wear them until they fall apart and need to be changed. Julia’s connection could be in the fact that she submits both to the judgment of her mother, who apparently is the guardian of quality evaluation. Laura’s construction of the shoes shows in the intervention of the interviewer. After Laura mentions her healthy Birckenstock, the interviewer reminds her that during her blind shoe trial, she kept on evaluating the benefits of the shoes for the foot. Floriane stands on her own once more. It is
a negative experience she recalls for her first time. It might however have define her way of approaching shoes as she shows during the entire interview to define a lot according to her dislikes (wedges being the main of them).
Profiling the shoe shopper While there is here a necessity of digging deeper in the study of shopping habit from a theoretical point of view, we can notice still that half of the stories about the favorite pair of shoes are actually one tale of a shopping spree. Laura, Julia, Floriane and Anne fell in love with the shoes and remember very well the conditions of the acquisition. Hélène describes her endless cycle of buying the same type because of her monomaniac use of shoes. The shoe became an object of quest and that is why they are treasured. For Jenna and Stéphane, it is not the same preciousness though their case could be comparable. One would keep them from use while the other would have kept them forever despite having a cracked sole and losing their waterproofing. Jenna’s behavior is actually defined by the fact that she wants to avoid what happened to Stéphane and end up having to discard them because someone else express the sense of irrationality in this behavior. Basically, we could say that those two want a keeper when they pick a shoe. Angie and Hélène would be hard to convince
because they probably are shopping mavericks. They only buy the shoes they need and in a sense must be one kind of utterly sustainable shoe users in our panel. This means though that they may go for archetypical shoes and if designers were to think of them as their target, they will need to have a thorough knowledge of women’s categorization of shoes by meaningful shape. Michelle, because of her stage experience, and Mélodie, because of her anxiety of projecting a sexualized type of femininity, would look for shoes that will express their personality. Their approach would be similar to Stéphane’s when she describe going for a specific pair of shoes and coming back with a completely different one. However, comfort may be more important to them than design in the seductiveness of the shoe. To confirm those profiling hypothesis, a different investigation is necessary. Different methods could be used, like the thinking aloud, developed for the study of the museum’s visitor psychological process. It consists in having people recording their own thoughts as they wander in the room. The type of information collected by sending subjects in Louboutin, Selfridges and Primark could be very precious for a further comprehension of how women connect to their footwear.
Researching for designers Thinking in a shoe making team by Raphaëlle Bénard
I am actually about to discuss a very pleasant experience. I joined this team with a rather specific idea in mind. My project was to explore the psychological side of the case and as I had the chance to do previously in my studies, chase people and require them to tell me all about how they feel. Having to collect information to support the design changed my initial field of interest. We decided to look into desire and not only the meaning of the shoe. It also affected all my brilliant plans of harassing people in shops. We needed quality data and information about visual elements. I had to forget about using “thinking aloud” in high end shoe boutiques and observations soon followed. Quite late in the process of writing, I realized I had left out the part of the shopping experience. I think we all did leave a little bit of our initial project in consideration of the time we had and our mean. I would say that the tools of research revealed itself to be our main obstacle. Initially, we wanted the same pannel for the shoe trial and the interview. Once we gave up that idea, my field research became easier. In the very first stage, I acted as Emily’s biggest support, bringing her highlights about the scientific methods and insisting on the necessity of justifying and recording the methods. As some point however, the design part came in the process and since I was teamed up with 3 designers who would each end up making their own prototypes, I backed down and maybe lost track of the global project. I tried to feed back my research to Emily to help her with the design but I think she was already well provided on her own. In other word, I think I designed my own project and decided to focus on it. Since I would be the one without a pair of shoes at the end of the project, I’d better discover as much as I like too. I hope I will have had at least a good impact on Emily’s methods. I am happy with the discovery of the meaningfull shape categorization of shoes and I suppose that if I hadn’t been looking into desire because of Emily, I would have missed on that.
Jenna’s treasure
This project opened a brand new horizon of understanding the relationship between users and fashion. I fancy that others will find it as interesting as me and maybe will be willing to pick it and turn it into a fabulous project. References:
Books: Chapman, J. (2005), Emotionally Durable Design, London: Earthscan Ferris, S.; Young, M. (2006), Chick Lit: the new woman’s fiction, New York: Routledge Klein, M. (1975), Envy and Gratitude and other works 1946-1963, London: The Hogarth Press Lacan, J. (1973); Les quatre concepts fondamentaux de la psychanalyse, Paris: Point-Seuil Miller, D. (2010), Stuff, Cambridge: Polity Press Smith, Caroline J. ((2008), Culture and Consumerism in Chick Lit, New York: Routledge Yardley, C. (2006), Will write for shoes: How to write a chick lit novel, New York: Thomas Dunne Books Articles: Vale, P.H. (2010) “Addiction-and the rational choice” International journal of consumer studies vol 34 (1) p: 38-45 Smith, T.G.; Tasnadi, A. (2007) “A theory of natural addiction” Cames and Economic behavior vol 59 (2) p: 316-344