Exploring the ‘shopping imaginary’: The dreamworld of women's magazines

Abstract This paper focuses on the consumer imagination and, more specifically, on the imaginary shopping spaces which women's magazines create. It addresses the anticipatory, imaginary and experiential consumption which this medium invites. The paper explores how women's magazines function as ‘dreamworlds’ of shopping; and how contemporary readers consume these imaginary shopping spaces. In order to illustrate what the authors term the ‘shopping imaginary’, they draw on findings from a study of women's experiential consumption of magazines, which show the multifaceted ways around which imaginary consumption is explored and enjoyed by women. The study suggests that women's magazines, like department stores, are spaces that facilitate and celebrate just looking and browsing, and, above all, they are shopping spaces that address the power of the imagination within them. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.