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nd wrong” behaviors or styles macerated, people need to individually make sense of what they consider as beautiful and aesthetic (Featherstone, 2004, Welsch, 1997, Firat and Venkatesh, 1995). This aestheticization trend is particularly lived out in urban areas by a young middle class, who is usually more active in the stylization of their lives. The urban context provides people with a style plurality from which they can individually make use of. Aestheticization manifests itself in accumulations of expressive goods such as clothing, furniture, in bodily alterations, and other aesthetic projects, which help people demonstrate their individuality and aesthetic differentiation (Featherstone, 2004; Firat and Venkatesh, 1995; Veryzer, 1995).

 

Venkatesh and Meamber (2008) argue that consumers are constantly seeking aesthetics in their everyday consumption, highlighting the centrality of aesthetics for people’s lives. Venkatesh and Meamber (2008) further contend that aesthetics in people’s lives and in consumption practices impact not only on people’s taste formations, but also on their emotions and feelings, which are central for people’s identity formation. Based on these findings, Venkatesh and Meamber (2008) conceive consumers as aesthetic subjects, who use meanings of various aesthetics in their identity creations (Thompson and Hirschmann, 1995, Venkatesh and Meamber, 2006). Non-traditional gender aesthetics add to identity creations, which is not limited to the adoption of styles, or to idiosyncratic consumption styles but derives much of its meaning from ‘gendered’ consumption. Gender aesthetics are playfully mixed and matched so as to define one’s gender identity on the continuum between femininity and masculinity.

 

CONSUMER GENDER IDENTITY PROJECTS

Thompson and Haytko (1997) define identity as a sense of the consumer of who s/he is, which is constantly (re)defined, negotiated and created. In contrast to the postmodern identity conception (Firat and Venkatesh, 1995) or the empty self concept (Cushmann, 1990), we assume that consumers actively construct identity narratives in which personal histories and conceptions of the social and cultural environment are interwoven. Consumers refer to market offerings by negotiating meanings and symbols via which they further develop their identity narratives. Nevertheless, consumers try to forge a coherent, if diversified identity narrative (Arnould and Thompson, 2005; Schau and Gilly, 2003; Thompson and Hirschmann, 1995).

 

Consumption patterns and objects provide people with means to create not only desired, utopian identities, but also to foster the development of consumer’s individual identity narratives (Kozinets, 2001). In the case of transitional life episodes, for instance, consumption objects, such as loved objects also help people to give meaning to these episodes or/and to stay “true” to their own identity. Similarly, certain consumption objects stand for specific personal meanings to which people refer to and by which they construct their subjective ind本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。