From “aesthetic” to aestheticization: a multi-layered cultural approach

ABSTRACT This article synthesizes previous literature on consumption, surrounding matters of aesthetic deliberation to offer a conceptual discussion of consumer-cultural aestheticization processes. Our main argument is twofold. First, we seek to re-orient the discussion of “the aesthetic” (i.e. something that is aesthetic) toward the processes that render something aesthetic (i.e. how something is made aesthetic). Second, on this basis, we conceptualize three groups of interrelated processes that cut across past research on aesthetics and elucidate how aestheticization permeates consumption, brand, and market processes. We discuss theoretical and empirical implications of this conceptualization in terms of (re-) enchantment, mythmaking, and aesthetics for future work on the nexus of consumption, brands, and markets.