Credit, Fashion, Sex

Economies of Regard in Old Regime France

Autor: Crowston, Clare Haru
Editor: Duke University Press
ISBN: 9780822355137
eISBN Pdf: 9780822377443
Lloc de publicació: Durham , United States
Any de publicació digital: 2013
Mes: Octubre
Pàgines: 448
DDC: 330.944/03
Idioma: Anglés

Descripció

In Old Regime France credit was both a central part of economic exchange and a crucial concept for explaining dynamics of influence and power in all spheres of life. Contemporaries used the term credit to describe reputation and the currency it provided in court politics, literary production, religion, and commerce. Moving beyond Pierre Bourdieu's theorization of capital, this book establishes credit as a key matrix through which French men and women perceived their world. As Clare Haru Crowston demonstrates, credit unveils the personal character of market transactions, the unequal yet reciprocal ties binding society, and the hidden mechanisms of political power.

Credit economies constituted "economies of regard" in which reputation depended on embodied performances of credibility. Crowston explores the role of fashionable appearances and sexual desire in leveraging credit and reconstructs women's vigorous participation in its gray markets. The scandalous relationship between Queen Marie Antoinette and fashion merchant Rose Bertin epitomizes the vertical loyalties and deep social divides of the credit regime and its increasingly urgent political stakes.

Contents
Illustrations and Tables
Money and Measurements
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1: Credit and Old Regime Economics of Regard
Chapter 2: Critiques and Crises of the Credit System
Chapter 3: Incredible Style: Interwined Circuits of Credit, Fashion, and Sex
Chapter 4: Credit in the Fashion Trades of Eighteenth-Century Paris
Chapter 5: Fashion Merchants: Managing Credit, Narrating Collapse
Chapter 6: Madame Déficit and Her Minister of Fashion: Self-Fashioning and the Politics of Credit
Chapter 7: Family Affairs: Consumption, Credit, and the Marriage Bond
Conclusion: Credit Is Dead! Long Live Credit!
Notes
Bibliography
Index