• the woman shopper, namely, an obsession with what is expensive and beautiful

• the "china fever" that swept eighteenth-century England was by no means particular to
women, or even to a special class of people – upper and lower classes both used it (tho
upper had elegant and expensive porcelain). Over the course of the eighteenth century, china
became a commodity of unprecedented popularity for nearly everyone in England
◦ China changed from being unknown in 1675 to being a normal part of household
equipment by 1715 ((just compare the years of the source))
• China was both aesthetic object and an item for everyday use
• historical record gives little credence to the notion that female consumers had any special
inclination to collect china
◦ men more likely to collect china, and women to use it as it was part of their domestic
sphere
• mention that Chinese factories produced porcelain for European markets!! according to their
taste!! think we forgot to say that
• when British began making own porcelain, used fanciful images of China as patterns,
English interpretations of Chinese landscapes and country
◦ e.g. blue willow-ware ((the typical blue porcelain)) had no Chinese prototype, but was a
purely Western invention, a British version of Chinese lore
◦ made it more “exotic” than even the originals