Paper short abstract:

This paper discusses the role of traditionalism in the presentations of furniture stores such as IKEA, Leen Bakker and Morres. These and other furniture stores seem to play in more or less explicit ways with different styles, some more traditional and others more modern. In how far can these styles be labelled as traditionalistic and does this necessarily also imply that these styles should be labelled as regionalistic, or ethnic or culture specific?

Paper long abstract:

This paper discusses the role of traditionalism in the presentations of furniture stores such as IKEA, Leen Bakker and Morres. These and other furniture stores seem to play in more or less explicit ways with fixed interior styles, some more traditional and others more modern. In how far can these styles be labelled as traditionalistic, and does this necessarily also imply that these styles should be labelled as regionalistic, or ethnic or culture specific?

Discussing the various interior styles presented by contemporary furniture stores, the styles will be confronted with the living room interiors as developped by the successful Dutch marketing-research company Motivaction. Motivaction uses living rooms as illustrations for her mentality-milieus devellopped for the aim of marketing research. What role does tradition, regionalism and ethnicity play in these presentations and in the milieus they are supposed to represent? How does this inform us about the role of traditionalism, regionalism and ethnicity in the world of marketing?