Abstract

This study focuses on the consumer imagination and, more specifically, on the imaginary shopping spaces that women's magazines create. It addresses the anticipatory, imaginary and experiential consumption which this medium invites. The article explores how women's magazines function as 'dreamworlds' of shopping; and how contemporary readers consume these imaginary shopping spaces. The study suggests that women's magazines, like department stores, are spaces which facilitate and celebrate just looking and browsing, and, above all, they are shopping spaces that address the power of the imagination within them.