are stores the new museums?

i've long wondered if stores have become our new museums. is fashion just moveable sculpture? then i read michael kimmelman's thoughtful piece, "how we look at art," in yesterday's new york times. "almost nobody, over the course of that hour or two, paused before any object for as long as a full minute," he writes, noting that in the old days, people digested art slowly. really looked at what they were seeing. today, kimmelman writes, we capture art on the fly, in bits and bytes, on cell phones and digital photos, but don't bother to see it properly. but i wonder if we've become more attuned to looking at stores, to design and fashion, which seem to promise an immediate connection to and reflection of our lives (even if it's aspirational). looking at photos of the british museum and the louis vuitton store display, it's hard to tell commerce from art apart. interesting that the baby "remembers" how to devour art (literally!) in a way kimmelman writes about.