page_title: Window shopping
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Window shopping / History
caption_attribution_description: The Block Arcade Clock
context_page_description: Window shopping, sometimes called browsing, refers to an activity in which a consumer browses through or examines a store's merchandise as a form of leisure or external search behaviour without a current intent to buy. Depending on the individual, window shopping can be used as a pastime or to obtain information about a product's development, brand differences, or sale prices.
  The development of window shopping, as a form of recreation, is strongly associated with the rise of the middle classes in seventeenth and eighteenth century Europe. Glazing was a central feature of the grand shopping arcades that spread across Europe from the late 18th century. Promenading in these arcades became a popular nineteenth-century pastime for the emerging middle classes.
  Traditionally, window shopping involves visiting a brick-and-mortar store to examine a product but is also done online in recent times due to the availability of the internet and e-commerce. A person who enjoys window shopping is known as a window shopper.
context_section_description: The development of window shopping, as a form of recreation, is strongly associated with the rise of the middle classes in seventeenth and eighteenth-century Europe. As standards of living improved in the 17th century, consumers from a broad range of social backgrounds began to purchase goods that were in excess of basic necessities. An emergent middle class or bourgeosie stimulated demand for luxury goods and the act of shopping came to be seen as a pleasurable pastime or form of entertainment. Shopping for pleasure became a particularly important activity for middle and upper-class women, since it allowed them to enter the public sphere without the need for a chaperone.
  Prior to the 17th century, glazed shop windows were virtually unknown. Instead, early shopkeepers typically had a front door with two wider openings on either side, each covered with shutters. The shutters were designed to open so that the top portion formed a canopy while the bottom was fitted with legs so that it could serve as a shopboard. Scholars have suggested that the medieval shopper's experience was very different.  Many stores had openings onto the street from which they served customers. Glazed windows, which were rare during the medieval period, meant that shop interiors were dark places which militated against detailed examination of the merchandise. Shoppers, who rarely entered the shop, had relatively few opportunities to inspect the merchandise prior to consumption.
  Glazing was widely used from the early 18th century. English commentators pointed to the speed at which glazing was installed, Daniel Defoe, writing in 1726, noted, "Never was there such painting and guildings, such sashings and looking-glasses as the shopkeepers as there is now." The widespread availability of plate glass in the 18th century led shop owners to build windows that spanned the full lengths of their shops for the display of merchandise in order to draw in customers.  One of the first Londoners to experiment with this new glazing in a retail context was the tailor Francis Place at his Charing Cross establishment.
  In Paris, where pedestrians lived with the virtual absence of pavements, retailers were eager to attract window shoppers by providing a safe shopping environment away from the filthy and noisy streets and began to construct rudimentary arcades, which eventually evolved into the grand arcades of the late 18th century and which dominated retail throughout the 19th century. Opening in 1771, the Colisée, situated on the Champs Elysées, consisted of three arcades, each with ten shops, all running off a central ballroom. For Parisians, the location was seen as too remote and the arcade closed within two years of opening. However, the Galerie de Bois, a series of wooden shops linked to the ends of the Palais-Royal (pictured), opened in 1786 and became a central part of Parisian social life. Within a decade, the Palais shopping complex added many more shops as well as cafés and theatres. In its heyday, the Palais-Royal was a complex of gardens, shops and entertainment venues situated on the external perimeter of the old palace grounds, under the original colonnades. The area boasted some 145 boutiques, cafés, salons, hair salons, bookshops, museums, and numerous refreshment kiosks as well as two theatres. The retail outlets specialised in luxury goods such as fine jewellery, furs, paintings and furniture designed to appeal to the wealthy elite.
  Inspired by the success of the Palais-Royal, retailers across Europe erected grand shopping arcades and largely followed the Parisian model which included extensive use of pane glass. Not only were the shopfronts made of pane glass, but a characteristic feature of the modern shopping arcade was the use of glass in an atrium-styled roofline, which allowed for natural light and reduced the need for candles or electric lighting. Modern grand arcades opened across Europe and in the Antipodes. The Passage de Feydeau in Paris (opened in 1791) and Passage du Claire in 1799; London's Piccadilly Arcade (opened in 1810); Paris's Pa
caption: Block Arcade, Melbourne, illustrating use of glass in shop fronts and an atrium roofline
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