Also this issue: Easy as (Pizza) Pie Nancy Heller comes up with a new, and delicious, approach to art appreciation. -Lori Hill Clothes-Minded Paul Fussell explores why how we dress is how we are. -Meredith Broussard Beauty Is... Big books from two very different area museums have more in common than you might think. -David Warner Children's Books -Harriette Behringer FICTION -Debra Auspitz, Justin Bauer, J.B, Elisa Ludwig and Alex Richmond NON FICTION -A.R, Nancy Armstrong, Brian Howard, Sara Marcus and Andrew Milner

December 5-11, 2002

cover story

Consumption Junction

Thomas Hine

Thomas Hine on the future of shopping, and why the malls days are numbered.

by Maura Johnston

Spike Jonze's recent ads for IKEA, which featured a man exhorting the masses to not feel bad for the lamps they were about to toss on the trashpile in favor of a Swedish-styled light fixture, caused critics to rave and catch glimpses of a sea change in the way people shop for furniture.

But Thomas Hine, former Inquirer architecture critic and author of I Want That!: How We All Became Shoppers (Harper Collins), didn't see too much that was new. He saw a direct, if twisted, homage to furniture-sellers of the 1950s and '60s, who would fill up pages of trade journals trying to divine ways to convince their customers that they should junk their fuddy-duddy living room sets and embrace the new.

"Their solution at the time was to convince everybody that modernity is what you have to have, and if you have real old-looking furniture you're not a good person," says Hine. "IKEA in a weird way seems to be reviving this effort, and they might be able to get away with it because they're not as expensive -- and it probably won't last that long, so you'll have to throw it away anyway."

Ah, progress.

I Want That! discusses how the "buyosphere" -- the term Hine coined to refer to the "set of virtual and physical places and ... state of mind" that make up the commercial sphere -- has, and hasn't, evolved over time. The topics it covers, too, show how much the act of shopping has permeated the consciousness -- from page to page, the book's breadth ranges from big box architecture to the debut of the five-cent store to a Veblen-inspired critique of hip-hop bling.

But it was a predicted sea change in shopping that pushed Hine, the author of two other books on consumption, toward writing this book.

"One of the things that got me started on this book was the widespread assumption a few years ago that the Internet was creating an entire new world where people would be buying all the time," he says. "I felt people were getting this wrong. That got discovered before I was able to finish the book. I shop online. It really has changed the way we look at things, but it hasn't revolutionized behavior -- it's like a more convenient catalog shopping."

So what does Hine see as the next big trend in shopping? The breakup of the mall -- or, rather, its evolution from a massive, hulking enclosed structure into a series of themed plazas where shoppers can strategically park.

"People are made impatient by malls -- I certainly am," he says. "If you walk from one end of the Court at King of Prussia to the other end of the Plaza at King of Prussia, it's the equivalent of walking from the East River to the Hudson in Manhattan; a) is this an advantage, and b) isn't it a lot more interesting to do the walk in New York?

"There's a development in South Jersey that's all upscale stores that are richly designed -- it doesn't look like a suburban strip center, but that's what it is." (The press materials for the shopping center, The Promenade at Sagemore, actually refer to it as an "upscale, open-ended lifestyle center.") "You park outside of Ralph Lauren like you'd park outside of the 7-Eleven ... It's the premise of King of Prussia, only done as a strip mall."

A better time of year couldn't have been picked for the release of the book: right in the middle of this year's seemingly extended holiday shopping season. But the timing has also forced the time-strapped Hine to ponder a question that dates back to the mid-19th century, when stores started closing on Christmas Day.

"From now until Christmas, I'm going to be out promoting the book, and I keep thinking, ŒWhen am I going to do my Christmas shopping?'

"Of course," Hine adds quickly, "a lot of people are going to be given the book."

Thomas Hine reads and signs Thu., Dec. 12, 7:30 p.m., free, Chester County Book Company, 975 Paoli Pike, West Chester, 610-696-1661.