'Cause I wuv you! Pet dog fashion and emotional consumption
Researchers have analysed how pets fuel marketing and consumption and what kind of role emotions play in these areas. Yet there is no research on how commodities are used in negotiating the emotional relationship between humans and pet dogs. This article contributes a new perspective to the discussion on pet consumerism by focusing on the role of emotions. It examines how pet dog commodities define and materialise the ideal emotional bond between the human and the pet dog: how consumption is justified and rationalised by appealing to emotions, how emotions are mobilised in pet markets, and how value is ascribed to the human pet dog bond through material objects. As a tangible example of affective capitalism, pet dog fashions indicate how the need to establish a relationship between a human and a dog is transformed into material goods and services. I love and treat my puppies as if they were my own children. I have to admit, I may have spoiled them a little too much. But how can I not? Just look at those sweet lil' faces, they deserve to be treated like my lil' prince and princesses I love my babies. (Daily Mail Reporter, 2009) This excerpt is from an on line article about Paris Hilton. It reports about Hilton's 'Mini Doggie Mansion' a miniature version of her own Beverly Hills mansion, which she has constructed for her lap dogs, the now deceased Tinkerbell, Marilyn Monroe, Dolce, Prada and two other pooches. The double storey pink chateau, estimated to be worth $325 000 in a biography about Paris Hilton (Gurvis, 2011: 67) covers about 300 square feet, boasts miniature Philip Starck furniture, heating and air conditioning, as well as a crystal chandelier and ceiling mouldings. Downstairs it has a living room and in the upstairs bedroom ephemera: theory politics in organization 16(4) 75 97 76 article it has a car shaped 'Furcedes' bed with luxurious 'Chewy Vuitton' bedding. The dogs also have a closet: it is filled with haute couture outfits for them, including, for example, a pink angora sweater, 'gaudy pink high heeled Louis Vuitton dog booties' and other accessories 'that cost probably more than your car' (Hilton and Resin, 2004) The Daily Mail article is one of many articles that have reported on the socialite's conspicuous spending habits on her lap dogs. While Paris Hilton and her fashionably dressed pooches may be among the most followed celebrities in the world of entertainment, they are by no means the only ones. Throughout the 2000s, a growing number of female celebrities have been photographed carrying a fashionably dressed and extravagantly accessorised little lap dog (e.g. Bettany and Daly, 2008: 409) A Google search 'fashionable celebrity lap dogs' produces almost 1 000 000 hits in 0,8 seconds, and features sites such as 'dog fashion spa' 'Cindy Crawford dressing her dogs' and 'Pugs and Kisses Celebrity Dog Fashion Show' Celebrities and their fashionably dressed lap dogs are visible in entertainment media but they have also successfully marketed certain dog breeds and luxurious dog fashions to ordinary people: while spending on other areas of life has decreased, spending on pet dogs has steadily increased in the 2000s. This is evident in statistics. In the United States, for example, pet dog consumerism has increased by over 70 from 2004 2014; from 34 billion dollars to 58 billion dollars (Bettany and Daly, 2008: 409; APPA National Pet Owners Survey, 2013/2014: webpage) The same applies to Finland. Spending on pet paraphernalia has increased more than spending on any other area of leisure from 2006 2012 (Nurmela, 2014) At the beginning of 2014, the Finnish journal of economics, Talouselama, reported that in the previous year, the biggest Finnish pet shop chain Musti ja Mirri had doubled its profit and grown the popularity of the company's customer loyalty program by 20% For this reason, the magazine gave the company the title 'gainer of the year' (Talouselama, 2014) Researchers have analysed how pets fuel marketing and consumption and what kind of role emotions play in these areas (e.g. Brockman et al. 2008: 397 405; Holbrook, 2008: 546 552; Kennedy and McGarvey, 2008: 424 430; Hsee and Kunreuthner, 2000; 141 159; Aylesworth et al. 1999: 385 391) Yet there is no research on how commodities are used in negotiating the emotional relationship 1 As David Redmalm (2014: 93 94) has pointed out, Tinkerbell's and other celebrity lap dogs' fame increased the demand for small laps dogs, especially Chihuahuas. This has resulted in a large amount of abandoned lap dogs, and even created a diagnosis called 'the Paris Hilton syndrome' The term refers to people who take a lap dog without properly understanding what acquiring a dog means. When the pet turns out not to be only a cute little accessory, but a dog with a will of its own, it is abandoned. Annamari Vanska 'Cause I wuv you! article 77 between humans and pet dogs. This article contributes a new perspective to the discussion on pet consumerism by focusing on the role of emotions. I examine how pet dog commodities define and materialise the ideal emotional bond between the human and the pet dog: how consumption is justified and rationalised by appealing to emotions, how emotions are mobilised in pet markets, and how value is ascribed to the human pet dog bond through material objects. As a tangible example of affective capitalism, pet dog fashions indicate how the need to establish a relationship between a human and a dog is transformed into material goods and services. The wider theoretical framework of this article is posthumanism. I use it to explain how pet dogs have been included in the history of humans and how consumer culture is built on and how it capitalises on this inclusion. I find posthumanist theory particularly useful for this task, because it helps to explicate how pet consumerism and pet commodities materialise a change in humanity's status. I contend that pet commodities and services display how emotions not only fuel capitalism, but how they also transform the pet, the human and the market itself. An important frame of reference in this sense is emotional capitalism. Eva Illouz (2007: 5) has used it to describe capitalism as a culture where emotional and economic discourses and practices shape each other. This is noticeable in the human pet discourse, for example, in the language of emotional attachment and humanisation, and in the pet commodities themselves. The article is structured as follows: I first outline the posthumanist theoretical framework. Second, I trace the cultural history of the pet dog as a 'love machine' as a source and mediator of positive emotions. Third, I discuss how the emotional bond between dogs and humans has been intertwined with capitalism from the beginning and how it materialises in pet fashions in contemporary culture. In doing so, I use detailed examples of marketing approaches by a British (Love My Dog) and a Finnish (Musti ja Mirri) company to demonstrate how emotions are utilised in the language of marketing and how they are rationalised and transformed into commodities. In the final section, I discuss how pet consumerism and pet fashions deconstruct the dichotomy between humans and animals and how affective capitalism capitalises on this deconstruction. Framing pet dogs and humans: Posthumanism Paris Hilton regularly states in interviews that she 'spoils' her pet dogs because they are her 'babies' In her biography, Hilton claims that 'Tink doesn't even like ephemera: theory politics in organization 16(4) 75 97 78 article other dogs she acts just like a human! (Hilton, 2006: 166) Pet shops, on the other hand, market dog fashions by appealing to the customer's sentiments by claiming to offer tools for 'caring' 'loving' and promoting the dog's overall 'wellbeing' The focus on positive feelings and the promotion of a warm affectionate bond between the human and the pet dog constructs an ideal view of pet ownership. It also opens up a viewpoint to the wider theoretical framework of this article: posthumanist theory that re conceptualises the relationship between humans and non human animals (e.g. Haraway, 2003; 2008; Derrida, 2008; Wolfe, 2003; 2009) and acknowledges non human animals as an integral part of human history, experience, and, in the framework of this article, consumerism. Posthumanism is an umbrella term for studies that re configure the relationship between humans and non humans, humans and technology, and humans and the environment (Hassan, 1977: 201 217) Posthumanist approaches aim to challenge classical humanist anthropocentrism and its dichotomies such as human animal and nature culture the uniqueness of 'the human' as the crown of the creation, and the position of the human as an autonomous, rational being in contrast to irrational, instinctual 'animals' (Wolfe, 2009) In this article, posthumanism is understood as a set of questions and as a tool for dealing with those questions, when 'the human' is not the only autonomous, rational being who knows or consumes. Of course, a discourse on pet dogs is not the same as a discourse on animals. Animals and pets are conceptualised contradictorily, and they occupy different social positions and conceptual categories. Some argue that pets are privileged animals: that they are favoured, remain close to humans and occupy a hierarchically higher status than other non human animals (Thomas, 1983: 100120) Others see pets as degraded animals: while an 'animal' is conceptualised as wild and self sufficient, the 'pet' lacks these qualities (Fudge, 2008) A pet is literally a tamed animal it is by definition not an animal. A pet's animality has been removed through domestication and breeding (Fudge, 2008; Haraway 2003; 2008) Still, a pet it is not a human either. It is a grey area or a category inbetween humans and animals. A pet is an ambiguous category as it crosses and challenges the categorical bound