Fashioning Material Culture - The Relationship between Fashion and Design and Mass Consumption - Essay Example

Most scholars who have placed emphasis on consumption, and most particularly those who have developed consumption theories seem to believe that consumption is identical to contemporary mass consumption. They emphasize the enormous magnitude and materialism related to mass consumption and see this mostly as a threat to the environment, people, and society. However, instead of focusing on the theoretical issues about the practicality, sustainability, and legitimacy of consumer practices, analysis of consumer practices in the context of material culture has the benefit of reorienting interest in the symbolism, meaning, and outcome of the object being consumed.

This definition indirectly implies that there are two types of human culture, namely, material culture and non-material culture, or, the culture’s physical manifestations or objects and the meanings related to these objects, respectively. Anthropologist and archaeologist James Deetz developed a more inclusive and current definition of human culture, both material and non-material.Material culture is usually considered to be roughly synonymous with artifacts, the vast universe of objects used by mankind to cope with the physical world, to facilitate social intercourse, and to benefit our state of mind.