Consuming Colonialism: The strange case for the marketing of empire

Abstract

Although, initially, Britons at ‘home’ and abroad in the nineteenth century experienced empire through the writing of the time, present-day readers have gone beyond the textual medium to revisit British India again through the contemporary marketplace. From the pashmina shawl, the furniture of Pottery Barn, to Hollywood epics, ‘India’, in all of its imperial domestic glory, is everywhere. This essay explores the current North American retail marketing trend of home furnishings that have been termed ‘British Colonial’ in style and appearance, considering, in particular, the exclusive nature of both the products and the target audience to which they are being sold and the rationale for the resurgence of such commercial interest in Queen Victoria's empire.