000			02243nam a2200217 4500
005			20250110103449.0
008			241220b |||||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d
040			_aMAIN
041			_aEng
100			_aSmith,Kate _963800
245			_aSensing Design and Workmanship: _b The Haptic Skills of Shoppers in Eighteenth-Century London/ _cKate Smith
260			_aOxford: _bOxford University Press, _c2012.
300			_aVolume 25, Issue 1, March 2012( 1–10 p.)
520			_aThis article explores how eighteenth-century shoppers understood the material world around them. It argues that retail experiences exposed shoppers to different objects, which subsequently shaped their understanding of this world. This article builds on recent research that highlights the importance of shop environments and browsing in consumer choice. More particularly, it differentiates itself by examining the practice of handling goods in shops and arguing that sensory interaction with multiple goods was one of the key means by which shoppers comprehended concepts of design and workmanship. In doing so, it affirms the importance of sensory research to design history. The article focuses on consumer purchases of ceramic objects and examines a variety of sources to demonstrate the role of haptic skills in this act. It shows how different literary sources described browsing for goods in gendered and satirical terms and then contrasts these readings against visual evidence to illustrate how handling goods was also represented as a positive act. It reads browsing as a valued practice requiring competence, patience and haptic skills. Through an examination of diary sources, letters and objects this article asks what information shoppers gained from touching various objects. It concludes by demonstrating how repetitive handling in search of quality meant that shoppers acquired their own conception of what constituted workmanship and design.
650			_aCeramics Industry _y18th Century _zEurope _963801
650			_aConsumption
650			_aManufactur Material _963802
773	0		_09229 _913521 _dOxford Oxford University Press _oJ000524 _tJournal of design history _x0952-4649
856			_u https://doi.org/10.1093/jdh/epr006
942			_cART
999			_c15364 _d15364