Abstract
Bellavita is the first department store which aims their customers at the upper class in Taiwan. Its appearance shows us the existence of Taiwan’s upper class. As luxurious service settings, it makes distinction work and excludes non-upper class customers by different mechanisms. Thus, the main question of this research is: How is the distinction work of Bellavita practiced and how it becomes the shopping space of upper class? This research finds three mechanisms of distinction work. First is the institutional management of this department store, it makes Bellavita become a space which only serves upper class customers. The second one is the service interaction between salesclerk and customers. Salesclerks, as gatekeepers, exclude people who are not potential customers, while the customers also perform their social status during the service process, leading to the securing of privilege of the affordable and reinforce the gap between salesclerks and customers. Lastly, salesclerks draw boundaries according to the contents of work and to gender, trying to build their own identity in this luxury department store. Such boundary works do not really turn over their status but reproduce unequal social status between them and their customers.