External evidence will not only suggest ways to interpret the object it will also help place department stores into the social, economic and political environment from which they emerged. It will be useful to analyze how historical circumstances are reflected in department stores. In this step of my analysis I will explore how meaning was transferred from the cultural world to department stores themselves. Department stores were built with specific intentions in mind and as objects they reflected cultural values. I hope to uncover these intentions and the process through which department stores came to embody intended meanings.
Production is an essential instrument of meaning transfer.
An examination of how the owners, managers, and designers of department stores worked together to produce and create the stores will help establish how physical design was used to impart meaning. Advertising is another key instrument of transfer that works to convey a set of meanings for public conception. By analyzing department store advertisements I can learn how the owners intended the stores to be portrayed and ultimately conceived by the public. Advertising will thus reflect one possible meaning of department stores. The Fashion System is a complicated instrument of meaning transfer that derives from the social commentary of opinion leaders who shape and encourage particular conceptions of consumer products.