Cultural influence on lifestyle products

Special Project

Cultural Influence on Lifestyle Products

byDhyan SumanInteraction Design 2009-201109633004

GuidePurba Joshi

Industrial Design Center,Indian Institute of Technology BombayPowai, Mumbai - 400076

Contents

1. Overview 12. What is lifestyle? 23. What is a lifestyle product? 34. Way of defining the products 55. Dominant Design styles 76. Attributes of lifestyle products 117. What is culture? 138. Indian culture 149. Market study 3310. Influence of Indian Culture 3911. Case study 1 4212. Case study 2 4513. Conclusion 4714. References 49

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Dhyan Suman | Special Project | Cultural Influence on Lifestyle Products

Overview

The primary aim with this project was to get a better understand-ing of lifestyle products in Indian context. There were lot of ques-tions to the basic concept of ‘lifestyle’ —What is lifestyle? What defines lifestyle products? What kind of people buy these prod-ucts? This also included looking at history of design and putting down the attributes of a lifestyle product. How Indian culture influences these lifestyle products?

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What is lifestyle?

The simple and straight meaning of the term ‘Lifestyle’ — the way of life. Each individual develops his personality and strive for perfec-tion, that is what Austrian psychologist Alfred Alder termed ‘Lifestyle’ or style of life in 1929. Alder describes four basic types of life styles—1)One who does not strive for personal things but do things that are useful for others and himself, 2) here one wants to prove his superiority by ruling others, 3) wants everything in life through others without an effort from his side, and 4) one who avoids decisions.

The present broader meaning of term lifestyle is a collection of set of behaviors and the senses of self and belonging in a given time and space, including social relation, consumption, enter-tainment. It typically also reflects an individual attitudes, values and worldviews. In modern society the line between one’s iden-tity and everyday activity that signal a particular lifestyle has become blurred.

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What is a lifestyle product?

Lifestyle products can be defined in a numerous ways. The term ‘lifestyle’ in business is a medium by which advertiser and mar-keters endeavor to target and match consumer aspirations with products, or to create aspirations relevant to new products. The characteristic of lifestyle is dependent on various factors like the habits, attitudes, tastes, moral standards, economic levels and so on.

Our individuality is based on our past experiences and back-ground like ethnicity, social class, nationality, etc. Lifestyle prod-ucts focus on evoking emotional connection between a consum-er’s demographics and the consumer’s desire to affiliate him or her with that style of life.

Lifestyle do not end at products, its everything we do and we consume—art, music, entertainment, food, architecture, automo-biles, etc.

Not every product is a lifestyle product. Lifestyle products repre-sents a culture, conveys a statement and evoke a wish to lead the lifestyle they are representing in mind of consumers. These prod-ucts are more than just necessity. For example nike and adidas

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promote a lifestyle of a person who is into sport, and consumers want themselves to be associated with that lifestyle and thus they buy it. May be they are not able to live a life of sports person, but do like themselves to be associated with that. Another example we can see in electronic gadgets is Apple.Lifestyle products in a way are status symbols and often refer to the luxurious life. It can be debatable since things like ‘green life-style’ mean doing and using things which are eco friendly.

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Way of defining the products

There are two different viewpoints toward the lifestyle products—lifestyle that defines products and products that define lifestyle.

Lifestyle that defines products—Here the products we use are not by choice but as a necessity because of the surrounding condi-tions, traditions, social class etc. For example, In north India the way one wear turban describes his religion, caste and social status. With a symbol to represent one’s identity, turban is used to avoid the harsh sun. Similarly, according to the mumbai’s lifestyle and issue of space crunch, furniture with storage space, foldable tables/chairs and maximum utilization of space can be seen on products here.

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Products that define lifestyle—Here the lifestyle of an individual is define by the products he uses. Such products usually have a greater visual appeal and other functional aspects and looked upon as luxurious products. For example, Harley Davidson mo-torbikes, with purpose of commuting from one place to another its more of an experience, a status symbol and an image of a tough and macho guy that the rider wants to be related to. Similarly, Apple’ laptops and Ipods provides with great experi-ence of interaction with their products with intelligent design yet minimalistic look.

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Dominant styles (history)

We cannot exactly mark when the design started, but it has al-ways been in relation with the art movements. Designing mainly got recognition after the Industrial revolution (1760-1830). We will have a look of the prominent art movements and product styles.

Colonial style (16th-19th century)—Colonial style refers to the furniture style of the colonies during the colonial period. The fur-niture is characterized by the strong English influence used with local available materials.

Victorian Era (1837-1901)— Heavy ornamentation is a charac-teristic of the Victorian period. The round ottoman, balloon back chair, and single end sofa were all developed during this period.

Arts and Craft Movement (1860-1939)—the movement was an response to the highly ornamental style of Victorian era by giving the rustic and craftsman look to the products.

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Art Nouveau (1890-1910)— Art nouveau was more popular in Europe than in USA. The style was highly decorative with curvy and undulating lines, off balanced designs mainly based on plant forms. The style found its place in textiles, architecture, furniture, illustrations, glass, and pottery.

Cubism (1908-1914)—Cubism was an avant garde movement pioneered by Pablo Picasso. The cubist artworks, objects were broken apart, analyzed and reassembled in abstract form. Simpli-fication of object in geometrical components was a prime style of cubism.

Art Deco (1920s-1930s)—Art Deco grew out of an intention to simplify the elaborate style of Art Nouveau and to be more re-sponsive towards the growing machine technology. Gradually Art deco became more geometrical and linear. Its expression was vis-ible on things like locomotives, architecture, cabinets, posters etc.

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Scandinavia Fair (1930s)— At the 1930 Stockholm Exhibition and the 1939 World’s Fair in New York, the larger world was first exposed to the simple, clean, and lightweight forms of Scandi-navian furniture. Quality craft combined with mass production where appropriate are hallmarks of the style. Bent plywood is a commonly used material.

Bauhaus Design School (1919-1933)— Bauhaus was the first design School in world, which showed importance on straight edges and smooth, slim forms. Unnecessary features on products became taboo. Shining steel was used as a material for furniture.

Contemporary furniture style (1920s)—The impact of First World War created a consciousness and influenced art, architec-ture and design. It was the age of Bauhaus, unwanted decorations were removed from the products and sleek, slim and neat forms became popular.

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Pop Art (1950s – 1970s)—Pop art was anti-art approach, giving common things artistic status.

Post modernism – present—Post-modernism represents the suc-cess of style over substance. New media and materials were used and the emphasis was more on the message through that product. A holistic approach to design and manufacturing making the product stylistically different. A style communicating the class, profession, aspiration and age group of the target consumer group. During 1990s more niche marketing was targeted with careful styling to appeal to defined consumers. The design and manufac-turer seek to find what people would like to buy.

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Attributes of lifestyle products

Having gone through and seen examples of the lifestyle products, one must define the attributes or essential characteristics of life-style products.1. objects of the day today life 2. not strictly utilitarian 3. objects imparting joy, tasteful experience 4. expressive emotional relationship 5. avant garde 6. niche products 7. exclusive 8. simple and elegant 9. durable 10. timelessness 11. precise/perfection 12. status symbol13. esteemed value 14. differentiation 15. aesthetics 16. cost exclusivity 17. design language close to handicrafts 18. technological advancement 19. association to time and place

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It is not sure that if the products have all the above attributes it will be considered lifestyle product. The attributes for lifestyle products keep changing exclusiveness, status symbol and most importantly technological growth. For example in past people used to carry huge music systems with them, it was latest in tech-nology at that time and was considered a lifestyle product, but not anymore now. The radios sets and tape reorders have almost vanished from our life.

Owners of such objects have a taste and want to exhibit the their style of living. There is a sense of pride in owning such products. These products may or may not be for any use but are displayed carefully. The owners either buy products that suit their context and ideology or sometimes they make space for that product in their lifestyle. A patchwork is created by owner, which reflects their ethics, beliefs, personalities, social status and habits.

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What is Culture ?

Culture has many meanings to it. The word ‘culture’ comes form Latin word cultural which means to cultivate. However culture has three basic senses:—excellence of taste in the fine arts and humanities.—an integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief and behavior that depends upon the capacity of symbolic thought and social learning.—the set of shared attitude, values, goals and practices that char-acterizes in a institute, organization or group.

In 1874 the British anthropologist Edward Burnett Tylor has tried to include as much as possible to define culture as “a com-plex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.”

For the purpose of this project, we can look at the culture as a set of beliefs, values and customs that effect their behavior related mainly to products.

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Indian Culture

India has been the crossroads of civilizations for over 5000 years. From the Gupta period to Mughals invasion and to British Raj, Indian society has been flexible to the changes without loosing its own identity. The Indian culture is not uniform all over, few parts absorbed the things from invaders while few stood still. With de-structions through these invaders, a lot of new art forms, music, crafts, beliefs and values came which has now become an integral part on Indian culture.

What are the elements of Indian culture?

The elements of any culture are the clues that tell about the be-liefs, customs, morals of that culture. If we look, we can broadly define these elements into four categories —1) Artifacts2) Visual language3) Practices4) Entertainment

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1) Artifacts:

Things like buildings/structures, furniture, utensils, ceremonial products, attire etc. comes under artifacts category. India has long history of invasions and all the historic buildings in India tells stories about their era. Though Mughals were invaders but they became a part of India. Their are architecture examples of Indian culture- forts made by Hindu and Muslim rulers, temple archi-tecture in south of India, and according to climatic conditions the houses of common man also had diversity in them for e.g. house boats in Kerela and Kashmir, the huts made by grass and cow dung. These structures may not be used by the common man any more, but they have been turned into luxury experiences. Like most of the old forts have been converted into five star hotels. In the images on the left we can see that the hut with nicely decora-tions and interiors and the beautiful houseboats have been turned into exclusive experience for tourists.


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The furniture style which is very typical to India, for example the charpai, intricate wooden carved low height seats. There have been example of furniture made with silver or coated with sheet of silver over carved wooden base. A reasonable replicas of silver furniture can be mainly seen during Hindu weddings, where it is used for bride and groom.

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Indian Trunks are also one of a kind things, earlier they were made of wood/metal, but material changed with the time, Iron trunks came in but the decorating the trunk still remained.

India is full of variety in cuisines and they are totally different from one another, Dosa from south India to bhatura of Punjab, bamboo pickle of north east to chunda of Gujarat. India has everything to tantalize your taste buds. With different cuisine the style/way of eating differ from community to community and so does the utensils. Earlier because of handmade process the uten-sils used to get a uneven texture, now at high end eat-out places the texture given purposely. With new materials like plastic the form has not changed.

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In images to left from top, a south Indian meal on a banana leaf, and an attempt to get something similar to banana leaf in steel. Similarly, in our daily meal we have lot of small bowl to hold variety of dishes, and an punched steel plates with fixed parti-tions. Below a very stylish and minimalistic look to the ‘Thali’ by a lifestyle product company.

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Another example is the puja thali where the use of it limited and dependent on occasions. The use of the product in the shown im-ages is the same but the value perceived is higher in few of them. A simple puja thali is converted into a more decorated thali or by changing material to silver or stylizing it, keeping the basic func-tion intact but making it more exclusive and different.

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Attire or the way of dressing is a strong icon of any culture. Indi-an are mainly identified with Saree all over the world. Other than sarees, there is sawlar suits, ghagra-chuni.

The painting of Ravi Verma describes best the different dressing styles of women in India.

Though the way of dressing have changed in urban areas with jeans and T-shirt, the rural India still follow the traditional dress-ing style.

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When these traditional way of dressing, which might have be-come not so prevalent, when redesigned by fashion designers be-come most desired objects by the high end society. They become lifestyle products with inspirations from traditional dressing with touch of on going global trends. We can even see the Indian influ-ence in fashion shows around the world.

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Jewelry is one’s way of showing the status and wealth in society and also conveyed meanings with certain jewelry. The nose ring, tika, mangalsutra and toe rings are an indication that the women is married. Its observed that today’s modern looking jewelry de-signs are mostly inspired from the traditional jewelry.

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We might have changed but when it comes to customs we want to perform them as they have been performed since ages. We have made stylish toe rings to go with our whole image and even if we don’t have piercing in nose, the nath has got a screw or to clip on. Similarly, companies like Titan introduced a whole range of watches that looked like bangles or string of flowers, to go with other ornaments.

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2) Visual Language:

The visual language plays an important part role in a culture. When we look at images of India and its culture, its not the imag-es we read , its the visual language. The symbols, patterns, colors script define the visual language of the culture.

The visual language, artifacts, practices overlaps each other lot of time. For example there are few symbols which are used only during some occasion or ceremony. It is also possible that few of Indian symbols are shared with another culture, but their mean-ings differ with the context. The patterns, motifs found on build-ings and artifacts can be also seen as visual language. The number of symbols in Indian culture are countless, I have tried to capture the most prevalent ones in this project for developing an under-standing towards them.

India being a very religion oriented country, most of the symbols like the ‘om’ symbol, lotus, the toran depicts Indian culture.

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Rangoli patterns which are very similar to the henna designs, mostly has flowers, leaves and curvy lines in the motifs. The paisley motif is not exactly Indian in origin but has become an important symbol to portray India.

Similarly, the elephant has been very important element in Indian Culture. It is widely used on textiles and as a decoration and on other hand it symbolizes Lord Ganesh. The Lord Ganesh symbol has been transformed in minimalistic symbol or object to make it more exclusive and to increase the perceived value to make it a lifestyle product.

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Another strong visual factor of India is the decorations on taxis, trucks, vehicles. The desire to customise, differentiate and the factor of belonging is seen in street based graphic designs and patterns. Indian trucks grabs the attention with their embellish-ments, patterns and colors.

In the given images, we can see how the element of trucks have been used and have inspired products with aesthetics with emo-tional relationship to Indian culture.

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The next imperative element of Visual language is the colors of India. India is known for its fresh and radiant colors used in almost every sphere of life, be it holi, or the colorful glass bangles, the local fairs, or the attire. Its not just the color, its the meaning behind it that matters and connect to Indian culture; for example the red bindi symbolizes if the girl is married or not and also the religion.



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3) Practices:

A culture is defined by the behaviour, practices and beliefs by a group or an institute. When we look at Indian culture in that con-text it has many one of a kind practices, for example if we look at professions related just to India, we can see snake charmers, dab-bawalas, panwala, cycle rickshaw driver, madaari, chaatwala and so on. Other than these professions, India has millions of people working in craft sector producing finest handicraft products in the world.

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With unusual professions, Indian culture is renowned for its festivals around the world; the dandiya of Gujarat, durga puja of Bengal, holi, diwali and many more. Each of these festivals have mythological story behind conveying the importance of the festival and beliefs related to it. For example, lighting diyas is not diwali, the true meaning of diwali is the celebration of Lord Ram’s return to Ayodhya and the victory over Ravana.

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4) Entertainment:

To understand any culture completely it is very important to look at the entertainment and the artistic growth of it. What do people of a particular culture do to entertain themselves let us know about the behaviour of the people. These recreational activities bring out the creative side of any culture. Broadly we can catego-rize activities like dance, music, acts, games and art in the enter-tainment group.

Dance forms itself is so diversified and unique from each other in India, for example the folk kalbelia dance of Rajasthan, bhangra of Punjab to classical odyssey dance and kathakali from kerela.

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In music also there is so much variety, we can still put them in two broad groups like classical and the folk. In classical music, Hindustani and karnatic music are best examples, and for folk music each state and region have their own different songs, for example, the songs sung during a weddings, the lullaby sung by mothers and the songs sung by people on festivals.

Another share of the entertainment group are the cats performed by people of a particular culture, in context of India; the Ram-leela, Nukkad natak/nautanki, Kushti, rope walking etc.

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The art in India can also be observed as two types; the local for example warli paintings, rangoli, embroidery and another style which is more intricate and require high level of skills, for exam-ple the miniature paintings, frescos in Ajanta Ellora.

Though cricket has become the favorite game of Indian, there are few games very distinctive to Indian culture, for example the Chaupad (mentioned in Mahabharat also), Gilli-danda and the marbles.

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Market Survey

For this project I went to quite a stores to understand the differ-ence between a lifestyle product and a commodity. Its like com-paring big bazaar and Home stop or @Home store.

Lifestyle products emerge from the need of being different from the crowd and commodity is mainly for masses. In recent years we saw more design stores coming up with products which were not just different but had a deep thought, which instead to follow-ing the western culture blindly, were more about our own culture.

Stores like Lifestyle and @Home still carry the that western feel to the products they have; a replica of an ancient clock from Art nouveau’ era, or the setup of a living room very English in nature.

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Though there were very few products like the tea-light candle holders which had Indian feel in it, other wise these high end stores still look at western culture.

Most of the products at these stores were glossy in finish and had subtle colors like brown, beige, dull gold, metallic grey, off white and etc. The only direct influence of Indian culture could be seen in In-dian god gold plated/ gold statues. Here the material is exclusive and thus makes the product exclusive.

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As mentioned earlier, a lot of designer stores have come up in last decade and representing India in their products. I went to few stores also like: the orange bicycle, the levitate, the boutique store, the bliss, playclan and went through works of chumbak, hap-pily unmarried, mukul goyal, masala chai, sanchali, art umbrella, iktaara. These stores/brands work particularly on India as theme and most of their user is the young generation.

Chumbak: Started with the idea of fridge magnets on India, they have managed to describe India beautifully in their illustration style and products. The company basically work on visual ele-ments inspired from Indian culture.

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Play Clan: A delhi based company, works mainly on illustrations inspired from India. Their illustrations have the global touch and style combined with Indianness.

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Masala Chai: it provides a platform for budding designers to showcase their talent. The store has products from around 70 designers from India.

Azaad Bazaar: This store in Bandra do not exclusively have Indi-an products but aims at youth on living in what you believe. It is a great example of the changing culture in India. Its the first store for gay in India representing the boldness and confident nature of today’s youth. Many products have used devanagri for punch lines and color scheme has the Indian richness.

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Other great examples from small design studios across the coun-try—the cheerharan toilet paper; based on an incident from epic Mahabharta from Indian Mythology, Vaid first aid box; before doctors, India always had Vaid (a local doctor) to whom people used to go, bags inspired from the Miniature art and Kathakali,and salt/pepper dispenser in form of weights. All these products may be/may not be have the elements of In-dian culture in their form but certainly have it in the meaning behind their products.

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Influence of Indian Culture

In India mostly till now, lifestyle has defined the products. Luxu-rious products were confined to the royal families only. A com-mon man was not allowed to wear silk, a shoemaker’s child had to continue the same profession as his father, he was not allowed to choose his profession according to his wish. But after India’s freedom, things have changed rapidly. A person has choice to achieve as much as he can according to his calibre today. With India being the youngest country in the world, the youth wants to earn well and live well.

With main buying power in hands of youth of the country, there has been a lot of change in the consumer behaviour. Most of the global brands are targeting India and are setting up R&D s to meet consumers demands here. According to McKinsey global Indian will become fifth largest consumer market by 2025.

Culture plays an extremely important part in our life. When we are kids, parents teach us how to behave properly. We are being taught that to be successful and happy in life we need to study. Then we learn of other sources also like friends, relative, teachers, occasions, festivals etc. These factors influences our behaviour like making purchases. Culture determines what is acceptable

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with product. It determines what people wear, eat, travel and so on. With more and more women are working, there is scarcity of time to do the household work, so products like washing ma-chine, microwaves, mixers, frozen food, fast-food etc have flood-ed the urban markets.

Physical appearance have become important today. Everyone wants to look their best and there is huge consumption of beauty products for men & women, slimming centers and parlours to help you achieve that.

Then there is definite shift to materialism from spiritualism. People are spending more on electronic gadgets, air conditioners etc which adds to the social status too.How culture influences our purchasing and usage decision of these products is that when we buy an A/C we would first get it fixed in our parents/elders room, with mixers and microwaves we cook Indian dishes only and the effect of that we can see on mi-crowaves having presets for idlies, dhoklas, dal, halwas etc.

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We have started wearing jeans but with a kurta and may be with a stole, the dressing is still decent and acceptable by society. Beauty parlours have mushroomed in cities and towns but the most money they make is through bridal make-ups and mehandi.

Till now when we buy a new car, a computer, music system, we do its puja, offer it to God first and then use it. Most of the mo-biles have image of God as wallpaper. The influence on mobile apps can be seen by the Hindu Panchang on mobiles to find tithi and other auspicious days.

Another way of looking at cultural influence would be through the changes in our traditionally used products. Foe this project two case study have been done—1) an indian cultural product which got influenced, and 2) a global product which transformed to suit Indian culture.

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Case Study 1

Let us look at the example of earthen pot (mataka) for storing wa-ter. The earthen pot traditionally is round in shape and requires a stand to keep it. Now a days in cities we can see flat base earthen pot with a tap attached for convenience of the user and to fit in the small spaces.

Similarly, where there was no issues with space, people have tried decorating and painting the earthen pots. It makes the product more personalized, different and exclusive.

One issue with earthen pot is that they are fragile and easily breakable. With introduction to plastic material, a whole range of colorful plastic earthen pot look a likes came into market. These are mainly used by the lower class, where they can save on buying earthen pot again and again.

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The images in left shows the earthen pot as more exclusive, niche, exclusive and valuable than the traditional one. These range is targeted mainly to the upper middle class and high class of the society. The basic function did not change here; i.e. storing water, and even the look the round shape of the earthen pot. The change and play with material like ceramic and glass, the detail in finish-ing and design language make it a lifestyle product. The product still has the Indian earthen pot feel and the emotional relation-ship attached to it.

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Another example of how the earthen pot has transformed in life-style product category is the ‘mataka kulfi’. Earlier icecream were prepared in Mataka (earthen pot) and hence it got its name.

Though with time these kind of icecream is scarcely available, icecream companies have tried to retain the taste and the emo-tion attached to the ‘Mataka kulfi’ by providing kulfi in small earthen pots or the same structure made in plastic.

Few lifestyle products have used the visual character of the earth-en pot in their illustrations. For example, the image of a tote bag with earthen pot’s illustration in left.

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Case Study 2

In the second case study I looked at some product which was used globally but got changed in India to fit in the culture. I thought to take some habit that we have learnt from childhood and to which some global product have taken care of.

The traditional way of going to toilet in India is by squatting on the floor. Yoga actually describes that in this posture (malasana), the intestines are in the best position to release all waste that is left after digestion. This yoga pose is especially good for pregnant women as a regular practice of this posture alleviates delivery. It helps you to open your hips and in the last days of pregnancy helps to make your baby feel the pull down – it can make the birth happen a bit earlier especially if the child is already late.

This posture is beneficial to men as well. It strengthens your calves and ankles, your feet and your toes. It relaxes your lower back. This posture helps against constipation and brings your bowels again in the right rhythm so that the functions of your metabolism work properly. The pose activates the second chakra which is related of course to our sexuality but even more to our feelings.

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Indian have always looked up to the western culture as the ideal lifestyle, we are ready to talk, dress, eat, walk like them, but there are few habits that are difficult to change. We tried to imitate them as much as possible and few of us got perfect in that. But because of our habit the Western style toilets had to change ac-cordingly. Examples of Indianized western commodes are shown in left, where there is option of keeping your feet over and a seat cover also if one want to use it in western style. The function remains the same but the outer form of the product has changed to suit the lifestyle.

During the market study I came across a ash tray made in shape of Indian style commode, made by an Indian designer. The prod-uct though humourous had the relationship to India and because of the size, use and the exclusivity was being sold at lifestyle stores.

http.2.imimg.comwww.eparryware.com

www.topsanitaryware.com

http.blog.malvikajain.com

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Conclusion

Culture plays an important role in the birth and evolution of a product; it is clear from the case studies. Through the market study, cast study and secondary research we can clearly divide the users for the lifestyle products i) who are wealthy, ii) who desire to be rich.

The wealthy irrespective of their nationalities have more com-mon with one another than with their country fellows. That is why we see two trends in lifestyle products in market 1) which is based on global trends mainly focusing to the rich segment of the society and 2) lifestyle products based or inspired from the culture which focus on the group who desire to be rich and are still connected to their culture. The quality, exclusiveness, design language, emotional relationship and the joyful experience are present in both the categories.

With new designer stores coming up, a strong market is building up for lifestyle products inspired from Indian culture expressing the values, belief in culture in aesthetic manner. These products focus on the Indian youth who like to flaunt their culture and thinking rather than blindly following the western culture.

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For rich beyond a certain relative price, they cannot buy a better object, what they do is add unnecessary stuff – for e.g. diamond watch, gold glasses, to make it exotic and exclusive.

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References

Sign Wallahs: an exploration of the Indian streetscape by Meena Kadri

Lifestyle Products by Darshan Madhukar Nerkar, IDC, IIT Bom-bay

Lifestyle Products in stainless steel for a senior executive officer by Ridhi Agarwal, IDC, IIT Bombay

Lifetsyle products in Glass and Steel by Darshan Rathod, IDC, IIT Bombay

Design since 1945 by Peter Dormer

Tylor, E.B. 1874. Primitive culture: researches into the develop-ment of mythology, philosophy, religion, art, and custom

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifestyle_(sociology)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifestyle_brand

http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/brandnewday/

archives/2005/07/not_every_brand_is_a_lifestyle_brand.html

http://www.answers.com/topic/culture

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture

http://www.restorations.net

http://www.jaisiyaram.com/yoga-poses/malasana.html

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Cultural influence on lifestyle products