A certain taste for things Materiality, consumption and womanhood in the Claudine series

This article analyzes the representation of materiality and consumption in Colette’s Claudine series. The material enjoyment allowed by objects as well as by natural elements is at stake in the novels, both for their heroine and for her entourage. This taste for things characteristic of the women of the series must be thought in the light of the consumerist and media culture of 1900, as well as of the social construction of gender on which it is based.