luxury? ICONIC LUXURY
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Dr Seán Williams gets to the philosophical heart of luxury’s curious cultural meaning
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couple of years ago, I was given a tour of one of London’s most salubrious hotels as I recorded the BBC Radio 3 documentary The Deluxe Edition. I’d wanted to understand the allure of the luxurious and was surprised to find Sartre’s L’Être et le Néant, or Being and Nothingness, laid out for guests on a coffee table in one of the finest suites. Among the many existential reflections in that doorstop of a book from 1943 is a critical philosophy of luxury. The material and the abstract, the exquisite and escapist alongside an examination of oneself: the signature of luxury’s cultural history is a curious contradiction.
Modern luxury consumer culture spread across Europe in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The term ‘de luxe’, like ‘hotel’, made its way from French into other European languages. In the early period around 1800, luxuries were defined as pleasures, conveniences and curiosities. For enthusiasts, they enabled the expression of individual personality and the progress of civilisation. In other words, the self and society were projected on to material things like never before – for the delight of others about town or as invited guests, yet also for one’s own enjoyment behind closed doors. People bought watches, glamorous postiches, pieces of furniture, high-quality
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