Unconventional Commodity

While reading Emile Zola’s Au Bonheur des Dames, what continuously stood out was the concept of the consumer’s experience. The flowing displays of material, the company vans, the ability to purchase everything you needed under one roof all added up to give a mentally stimulating attraction to the consumer, like how a mega mall grabs our attention today over a strip mall or regular sized mall. It is all about experience. These fantastic ideas of little shopping villages and entertainment experiences enclosed under one roof are to a shop-a-holic what a theme park is to a camera-happy tourist. Destiny USA is a great example of this. Once built, why go to Shoppingtown Mall when you could drive an extra few minutes and have an experience at Destiny that you have never had before? And even if a shopper has previously visited Desitny, as is the same with any other mega mall, the size and multitude of attractions within can lead to a different experience every time, taking away from the regular and mundane. Why else is a city such as Las Vegas popular? Location? No. Novelty? Yes. Au Bonheur des Dames offered an experience unheard of and for the women of that time to experience an excitement that broke up the normalcy was a highlight in their everyday lives.