Trying on a role: Mentoring, improvisation and social learning in luxury retailing

Much work has viewed retail as analogous to theater, creating memorable performances that communicate brand meanings. This article investigates how the theatrical metaphor applies to a further role played by retail environments: enabling customers’ social learning. When products are used in a collective consumption context, customers need to learn how to perform within that context. A micro-sociological study of men’s luxury tailoring reveals two ways in which this learning can begin in the store. First “mentoring scripts” help sales associates to coach the customer via discursive and experiential learning approaches. Second, staff and customers engage in improvisation practices, termed as role switching, status asserting, nurturing, and show rescuing. While deeply theatrical, these behaviors are reminiscent of improvisatory and immersive theater rather than of traditionally-staged plays, in that customers are not the audience but are active—albeit novice—performers. The drama of retail contexts is far more participatory than scholarship has yet acknowledged.