The Golden Age of Catalogs

Before the Internet, desire was cultivated with big stacks of glossy paper.

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Travel back with me to a different time. A time of abundance, guilt-free consumption, and minimal airport security. 

It was the 1990s and history had ended. The Cold War was over. Housing was cheap and gasoline cheaper. Socialism was dead, ideology was over, and everything was for sale. 

And so much of it was being sold in direct-mail catalogs.

The catalog! We forget how ubiquitous it was. As old as capitalism itself, they were the printed registries of merchandise that built the great brands of Sears, Tiffany’s, and Montgomery Ward.

And by the 1990s, the catalog had become the medium of its time. Every thin page a glossy, plasteen glow. Content cascading over itself in neon asymmetry. Loud copy trumpeting plastic wares. Labels, prices, SKUs, item numbers spilling out over the margins.  

An entire vista of stuff, an array of items for every need—from Scholastic books for children, to Sharper Image idiocies, to Skymall in your backseat pocket. All of it readily available right n…