Ellen McCracken is a Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and Program in Comparative Literature at the University of California, Santa Barbara, USA.

• Tables and Illustrations - Acknowledgements - Introduction - PART 1: ADVERTISING TEXTS - The Cover: Window to the Future Self - Covert Advertisements - Critical Approaches to Purchased Advertising - The Codes of Overt Advertisements - PART 2: EDITORIAL TEXTS: THE CONTINUUM OF COMMODITY-BASED CULTURE - Fashion and Beauty: Transgression, Utopia, and Containment - Service and Home: The Seven Sisters Adapt to the 1980s - New Workers and Career Women: Tapping a New Generation of Spenders - Reaching Minority Women: Language, Culture, and Politics in the Service of Consumerism - Class Not Mass: Special-Interest Publications and Pseudo-Individualized Consumption - Acquisitions, New Launches, and Adaptations: Women's Magazines Enter the 1990s - Conclusion - Index