Branding and Bricolage

Abstract

The analysis presented here focuses on the relationship between femininity, transition and consumer culture. It explores the relationship between gender and consumer culture in the context of a discussion of the transition from childhood to teenage status for a group of young girls, and seeks to make a critical contribution to contemporary debates on childhood and consumer culture by reflecting on the commercial context of this transition. In doing so, the concepts of ‘bricolage’ and ‘branding’ are considered in relation to the transitional experience of gendered consumer culture. Developing a sociological reading of Winnicott’s account of transitional objects and potential spaces, and developing Cook’s analysis of children’s consumer culture as being located in aspirational and proprietary spaces, the discussion highlights particularly the significance of transitional objects, practices and spaces in its analysis of empirical material, which incorporates both verbal and visual aspects of the lived experience of gender, consumer culture and transition into its methodology.