From the mid-nineteenth century, department stores captured the consumer imagination in Australia and around the world. In the early twentieth century, media depictions of the relationship between women—the default consumer—and department stores were ambiguous. Newspapers classified most women shoppers as naïve and vulnerable, and compared them unfavourably to ‘rational’ men shoppers, at the same time as their popular serials portrayed the department store as a glamourous site of potential transformation for women. The operation of class hierarchies in Australia included debates around whether those on limited incomes were entitled to consume beyond the ‘necessities’ of life. However, as production increased and more consumers were needed to support it, manufacturers and retailers encouraged low-income workers to use credit.