The Many Faces of Luxury (Article)

THE MANY FACES OF LUX URY

BY CHIARA WOLTER

Close your eyes. Picture yourself straying through a lively street in Paris, lined by a myriad of tiny, cosy cafes. The smell of fresh and warm croissants hangs in the air and you can see the brightly lit shop windows from afar as you slowly make your way towards the Champs-Elysées.

Now, instead, imagine yourself strolling through the busy streets of Ginza, an upscale shopping district in Tokyo. Look to your right, then to your left and glance into the shops and boutiques. Which clothing items do you see displayed in the shop windows? Which colours, which patterns? Do they differ from the ones dominating the showcases of the Parisian luxury boutiques? What if you had peeked into those shops fifty years ago? Would the items displayed in the showcases in all of those previously described scenarios have been the same? This article is in no way a scientific or objective study. It should rather be seen as a social experiment concerned with the question of whether luxury, in terms of fashion, is an entirely subjective concept or whether there are certain aspects and elements of its definition that everyone can agree upon.

What brands come to mind when thinking about luxury in relation to fashion?

Luxury is often immediately associated with high-end designers and fashion shows organized by well-known brands. But which brands in particular spring to mind? The answer is unsurprising: Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Victoria’s Secret, Prada and Chanel all made the list. All of those brands were also mentioned by individuals coming from different backgrounds and age groups. The outcome of the survey, in regard to this particular question, provides some food for thought: is the secret of those brands appealing to people from all walks of life? How do brands like Chanel or Louis Vuitton (which were founded over 100 years ago) still remain relevant nowadays?

What items are you thinking of?

I was intrigued by these questions, so I decided to conduct a survey and asked numerous people from different backgrounds and age groups the same three questions. As you can infer from the charts included below, the answers to the second question are a lot more diverse. In fact, they cover quite a wide range of different clothing items and

accessories: from shoes and coats to jewellery and sunglasses. However, the most interesting aspect of the responses is the way in which they were distributed amongst different age groups. Jewellery, for instance, had its fair share of honourable mentions: 70% of the people participating in this survey included it in their list of items they associate with luxury. But while only some people under the age of 50 referred to it, every single person falling within the ‘above 50 years of age’ group listed jewellery as one of their top items. On the other hand, sneakers were only brought up by teenagers or, more generally, age’ group listed jewellery as one of their top items. On the other hand, sneakers were only brought up by teenagers or, more generally, individuals under 50 years of age. This might not be an unusual observation. After all, one need not look far to see that streetwear is gaining immensely in popularity and the prices of sneakers by certainbrands like Nike or Off-White are skyrocketing.

Which adjectives do you associate with the idea of luxury?

Finally, the differences between the answers of people falling within the ‘Under 50 years of age’category and those falling within the second category especially shine through theresponses given to the last question. One striking distinction between both age groups was already hinted at beforehand: the classification of streetwear items as luxury items. Thus, while 33% of the people below the age of 50 associate streetwear items with the idea of luxury, none of those aged 50 and above did

A final distinction between both age groups can also be drawn in regard to the attitude adopted towards the concept of luxury as a whole. Although words like ‘elitist’, ‘white privilege’ or ‘intimidating’ were mentioned by a variety of people, younger individuals generally nevertheless appeared to be more critical of the downsides of the idea of luxury than their older counterparts.

What then is the result of this social experiment? Is there one generally accepted definition of luxury? As this survey proves once more, the answer to that question is no. Although the names of important high-end brands are mentioned by individuals from all walks of life, the concept of luxury in terms of fashion (as well as the ideas associated with it) remain subjective and ever-changing. If you look up the definition of ‘luxury’ in the Oxford Dictionary, it will never provide you with a closed list of items or clothes that fall within the category of luxury. There simply is no universally accepted definition. Like a chameleon altering its appearance depending on its surroundings, the idea of luxury itself is rather moulded by our experience, age, socioeconomic background and more broadly speaking by social and cultural norms.