This paper addresses some fundamental questions in the field of consumption studies through an exploration of literatures within object-relations psychoanalytic theory. It takes materiality as its central concern, dealing especially with questions of actor- commodity relations. In particular the paper uses the conceptual apparatus of the object-relations approach to propose a new way for theorizing aspects of consumption practice relating to person-object relationships. After situating the discussion within contemporary debates in consumption studies, the paper uses DWWinnicott's work as a point from which to integrate broader literatures on aesthetic experience and subject- object relations. The paper draws out the cultural implications and affinities of Winnicott's model and argues that his approach usefully suggests pathways for developing a model of consumption which neither reduces person-object exchanges to the psyche, assemblages of practices, or to the dead hand of social-structural forces. Rather, it is argued that Winnicott's model is suggestive of the more widespread and powerful cultural implications arising from relations between actors and objects of consumption.