A dictionary of Marshall McLuhan’s quotations

Physicists tell us that electricity isn't something conveyed by, or contained in, anything, but the conditions we observe where there are certain spatial relations between things. All people imitate their creations. Victorians moved like steam engines; the Gibson girl coming through an archway, her bustle a coal-car, looked like a locomotive leaving a tunnel. Today’s fashions imitate our principal creations, which are electronic. Women imitate light bulbs or TV sets: they give off light, their clothes glow and their hair is luminous.
“McLuhan Looks at Fashion” (1968), On the Nature of Media (2016), p 157-158
Year: 1968
Compiled by William Kuhns
© 2026, The Estate of Marshall McLuhan