Experiments in Suchness: Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Silk Shiki for Hermès

This chapter examines the artistic experimentations carried out by artist Hiroshi Sugimoto examining luxury products as part of a collaboration with Maison Hermès. When examined as part of Sugimoto's artistic and intellectual work, these items illuminate aspects of luxury production that have not been examined in the literature of the field, mainly because the frameworks that have already been developed rely heavily on subjective theories that shift with time. This chapter thus relies on a different argument — one which explains the power that luxury exerts over humans and why this is still relevant on both the experiential and discursive level.

The Luxury Duality: From Economic Fact to Cultural Capital

This chapter discusses luxury as both a quantitative measure of capital (economic) and as a qualitative measure of labour (social). Thus, it argues that luxury has to be regarded simultaneously as an economic fact and as a medium to communicate social relationships. The method of political economy contextualises these relationships into a particular power structure where stratification is expressed in commodity forms, in the concept of the luxury-as-dominance. Furthermore, the duality of capital and labour shows how much forms of production are integral to understanding luxury. Such processes, whatever the ultimate aspiration of the owners of the means of production (and capital), reinstate the makers at the centre of production and advance once more their cultural significance.

The Object and Art of Luxury Consumption

This chapter looks at two dynamics of luxury — the ‘democratisation’ of luxury, which occurs when such goods are made more widely available; and the rebranding of luxury goods as art objects, which emphasize their value in how unique and exclusive they are. The expansion of the luxury market and the more general ‘democratisation of luxury’ not only means that luxuries are everywhere, it also creates pressures to develop even more exclusive goods, stimulating ultra-luxury brands and the bespoke luxury market. Moreover, if it is possible for the luxury house to appropriate the aura of the artist and artistic production, then the prestige of their goods will necessarily rise. In exploring these tensions, the chapter looks at the broader issues of access to luxuries, the sustainability of their production, their just distribution, and the possibility of a space beyond.

Online Luxury: Geographies of Production and Consumption and the Louis Vuitton Website

This chapter looks at the Louis Vuitton website, a site devoted to luxury fashion which in turn forms part of a so-called ‘luxury web sphere’. It situates the brand in the context of the luxury fashion industry. The chapter then focuses on the idea of production and consumption, for both discourses inform much of the website. It interrogates the ways a luxury brand produces, and reproduces, online the logics of distinction and social differentiation that underpin luxury and finally looks at how exclusivity is built into a site, and, in the process, identifies the actors who are included in, as well as those excluded from, luxury as defined by Louis Vuitton.

Sartorial Connoisseurship, the T-shirt and the Interrogation of Luxury

This chapter explores the invasive action of contemporary luxury production and consumption, by using fashion as a means with which to more closely observe its characteristic stages. The basic plain white T-shirt, ubiquitous, instantly familiar and apparently simple, has provided a fertile vestimentary culture in which luxury's recent diversification and adaptation can be detected. A garment as democratic, modest, and undistinguished would seem at first glance an unlikely target for luxury's conquest, and yet the chapter argues that it is precisely because of its humble and unpretentious origins that luxury finds in it its ideal sartorial colony. What was once a utilitarian, basic item of clothing that served specific sanitary, economic and thermal functions has been completely transformed into a prohibitively expensive and, it could be argued, functionless garment, despite the often employed qualification of those same items as ‘basic’.

Luxury: A Dialectic of Desire?

This chapter explores luxury in a Hegelian tripartite framework (moralisation, de-moralisation, re-moralisation), to consider whether there is a viable Aufhebung, a move beyond the second phase or ‘Moment’. It first outlines the view that luxury as part of a moralised vocabulary was considered bad or dangerous; this view persists until about the seventeenth century. The chapter then discusses the rejection or negation of this, the process is considered here as the ‘de-moralisation’ of luxury. Finally, this chapter examines what might be said about a ‘re-moralisation’, that is, whether there is a viable or sustainable critique of luxury in the contemporary world. Underscoring these topics is the role played by, and assessment of, human desire.

‘Life’s Little Luxuries?’ The Social and Spatial Construction of Luxury

This chapter considers how the concept of luxury is deployed in both talk and practice. Drawing on qualitative interviews with older New Zealanders from a range of socio-economic positions, ethnic groups, and geographic locations across New Zealand, the chapter demonstrates how understandings of luxury are materially grounded and morally constituted. It provides some insights into how and why constructions of luxury are drawn upon to describe a range of consumption practices, and vary across people, place, and time. By examining the heterogeneity and construction of luxury beyond the consumption practices of the wealthy, this chapter shows that a ‘little bit of luxury’ in everyday life matters and more critically reveals how the manifestations and moralities of luxury consumption vary greatly.

Knowing Luxury: From Socio-Cultural Value to Market Price?

This chapter is concerned with the epistemology — or the nature and scope of knowledge — about luxury. The purpose here is not merely to define luxury but, rather, to explore how luxury is known and how this knowing is influenced by the rise to dominance of markets in the neoliberal era. Following an examination of the various meanings of luxury evident in current debates, the nature of knowledge and knowing is considered before knowing luxury goods and services is explored. Two distinct forms of knowing luxury are identified in this chapter: the first based on socio-cultural practice-based understandings and the second on market valuations. The chapter then argues that the privileging of the market under neoliberalism is leading to a shift in the nature of knowing luxury from the first to the second of these two forms.

Critical Luxury Studies: Defining a Field

This chapter introduces and defines the philosophical concept of luxury and the challenges of studying this seemingly ubiquitous idea. Using the example of the ‘city of pigs’, from Plato's The Republic, this chapter delineates the key themes of luxury studies, including beliefs about necessity and morality. It then studies the extant and contemporary literature on the investigation of luxury, reflecting on luxury in its historical context from the eighteenth century onwards. Finally, this chapter attempts to set out a new perspective on the entirely new field of research labelled ‘critical luxury studies’. The concern here is with luxury as ‘cultural capital’ and with the ever-shifting attitudes towards luxury as both a subject of study and a socio-cultural practice.

Libeskind in Las Vegas: Reflections on Architecture as a Luxury Commodity

This chapter considers a project from renowned architect Daniel Libeskind: a shopping mall opened in Las Vegas in 2009, deploying what have become the architect's trademark crystalline shapes. Named ‘Crystals at CityCenter’, the mall's branding derives its name and its luxury credentials from Libeskind's signature contribution. The chapter examines Crystals at CityCenter as an example of the millennial phenomenon of the ‘starchitect’-designed iconic luxury building. It explores the origins of Libeskind's architectural brand forms in the architecture of trauma in Berlin and, by contrast, the re-use of those forms in service of high-end retail on the Las Vegas Strip. In addition, the chapter argues that Crystals at CityCenter is also an example of architecture as sign — a sign of architecture referring only to itself, of architecture imagined as a luxury commodity.