A leading cultural historian examines why luxury has fascinated and enraged from the 18th century to today
It was 9am on a damp, greyish Friday and, recording for an episode of Radio 3’s Sunday Feature, The Deluxe Edition, my producer and I were already running late – for a champagne tasting. Being equivocal about the exquisite, I wanted to explore why luxury has appealed and appalled through the ages. To wax luxuriant, I needed a glass of fizz in hand. But shouldn’t we make it clear that I wasn’t drinking – either before or after midday – the BBC licence fee? Luxury inspires many thoughts, not least self-justification.
A shabby scholar of old books and dusty archives, I had worried that touring fine hotels and glamorous boutiques was selling out. But only fleetingly. It was fun, after all. And theory was not altogether out of place. Luxury brands like to namecheck intellectuals. Ten years ago, Christian Dior Couture cited German thinker Walter Benjamin’s concept of “aura” in a litigation case against discounters at the EU’s Court of Justice – and won.
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