Abstract The current pandemic is demanding a radical reconceptualization of fashion. In the context of an unprecedented economic decline, the collapse of physical fashion retailing and a fundamental interrogation of previous clothing consumption patterns, can the same be said of haute couture luxury fashion? Taking the current couture season’s promotional films as a starting point, this article discusses

Abstract Setting out from the Simmelian premise that fashion is the site of tension between conformity and distinction, this essay enquires into the element of distinction heightened in minimalist luxury fashion. Minimalist luxury reveals the inherently divisive nature of fashion, putting distance between “us”—the nonchalant, productive, and moral—and “them”—the vulgar, useless, and amoral. Its seeming

Abstract This article offers the reader an encounter with crucial writings on the globalisation of luxury fashion. In so doing, it introduces an original conceptualisation of luxury fashion. The historical meaning of the globalisation of luxury fashion from Roman times up until the present period is examined. The globalisation of Gucci, the Italian luxury fashion brand specialising in leather goods

(2019). Editorial Introduction. Luxury: Vol. 6, No. 2, pp. 137-138.

(2019). Recycling Luxury: An Introduction. Luxury: Vol. 6, No. 2, pp. 139-143.

Abstract In 18th century Venice, a city renowned for its unparalleled opulence, judicious recycling and repurposing of luxury textiles, was, ironically, the norm. Archival documents routinely list elegant, but “worn out” items, as in the 1773 inventory of Marina Eirardi, where a number of broken and “useless” clothing items are mentioned, and where is carefully described what remains of a precious

Abstract ‘The Virtue of Auction Houses’ shows auction houses to be important centres of recycling using philosophical theory combined with first-hand experience. The notion of ‘waste’ is explored – luxury items lying unworn and unused. This has moral implications and negates our ability to understand these objects. The auction house gives voice to these pieces once again. But why should we take the

Abstract The study and contextualisation of one early twentieth-century fancy dress costume from The John Bright Collection, London, provides an opportunity to challenge the socialised assumption that fancy dress costume is a short-lived, skill-less and superficial spectacle. Like many examples of this sartorial form, the Good Luck dress examined here shares characteristics with clothing termed, with

Abstract Tapestry is a luxury item before being a work of art. By the very fact of its function, tapestry undergoes transformations since all time. We cut or add borders, we cut large format tapestry into several pieces, and then, we re-sew them, all of this acts to put them to the dimension of surfaces that the tapestry must cover. This presentation would like to dwell on a particular case of a "tinkered"

Despite the ever-growing profit margins of the luxury sector, market saturation and the fashion cycle make it difficult for consumers to determine the value of, and for producers to imbue value in,...

In this article we investigate children’s perception and visual understanding of luxury and luxury brands. We explore what luxury means to children and whether their understanding of luxury is base...

Jean Dubuffet made his name and fortune in 1946 with Mirobolus, Macadam et Cie.: Hautes pâtes, a series of thick, high-relief paintings made of tar, asphalt, plaster and white lead, embellished wit...

This article examines the interrelationship of luxury and femininity in the historical case of J. Lyons & Co. Waitresses working for the company represented the widespread feminization of the West ...

It can be claimed that the concept of brand loyalty has a deeply rooted history similar to that of civilizations. How changes that are experienced in every area in the world reflect on the brand lo...

The Making Marvels: Science & Splendor at the Courts of Europe exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York showcased almost 200 luxury highlights. Between 1550 and 1750, royal dynasties i...

People feel emotional attachment to historical events. Heritage is the representation of the sensitive response that many luxury brands developed in their customer. This paper examines how Rolex us...

Ara Lumiere is a young fashion luxury brand founded by the Indian businesswoman and philanthropist Kulsum Shadab Wahab, combining her passion for fashion with social commitment within the Indian co...

Abstract This article examines the conflicted messages and construction of identity associated with women in uniform during World War II. Uniforms are developed as a unifying equalizer for a body of individuals; dress as a symbol, the part standing for the whole. Women’s military dress from this period, however, subverted this aim due to the ambiguous governmental and societal response to the women’s

This volume has been much needed and is likely to remain a key resource for the foreseeable future, drawing on the deep research expertise of Fiona Anderson. It contains a wealth of unpublished information drawn from company archives of firms including Linton Tweeds and Johnstons of Elgin; pattern books and records in the archives of the National Museums of Scotland and HeriotWatt University (Galashiels);

ABSTRACT Yoga is both a sociocultural phenomenon and a multibillion dollar industry. As consumers shift spending habits towards transformational and well-being experiences, the yoga industry provides a sophisticated and diverse offer of commodities, services and experiences that mix and bricolage conscious luxury with holistic and sustainable practices. The promise of happiness, harmony, balance and

The four articles in this issue of Luxury: History Culture Consumption might, at first glance, appear to have little to do with luxury, or at least many of its popularly understood qualities. Established concepts such as rarity, expense, excess, tradition and distinction have dominated both the promotion and critique of contemporary luxury production and consumption. While these attributes continue

Abstract This article will consider how men’s underwear garments, that have been considered a functional necessity from the end of the nineteenth century, have become associated with desirable luxury. It will address the ways in which predominantly invisible, inconspicuous male underwear garments, manufactured by traditional companies with a sense of their own heritage and using high-quality materials

ABSTRACT This article explores the material culture of taste, examining the ways that artifacts we look with (the technologies of looking) can mediate and produce our understanding of taste. Taking a phenomenological approach to shopping and luxury it examines how processes of looking closely, of connoisseurship and distinction are bound up with the performance of good taste. Drawing on Bourdieu’s

Abstract It is debated whether or not the “luxury” of a luxury object is contained within the object or exists beyond it. This text examines one object – a Neoprene little black dress by Givenchy – in the context of its references backwards and forwards. Using Webb Keane’s semiotic-temporal alignment, the dress’s past is analyzed as iconic and nostalgic through Walter Benjamin, and its future as symbolic

Jessica P. Clark is an assistant professor of history at Brock University. Her research focuses on the history of gender and consumption, empire, beauty, and appearance in the modern British world. Her work has appeared in publications including the Women’s History Review, History Compass, and Gender and Material Culture in Britain after 1600 (Palgrave 2015). She is the editor of the fifth volume of

Abstract Within the broad, market-driven category of contemporary design there exists a smaller culture of production, namely, elite, limited-edition furniture that seeks to straddle the line between design and art. Focusing on these neo-kingly things – so named as they represent today’s throne chairs and other high-status furniture objects – this article explores how these rarified objects function

Abstract The Tiffany & Co. Archives contain the historical design, manufacturing, and business records of Tiffany & Co., the internationally-renowned jeweler founded in New York in 1837. Among the Archives many collections are clippings books that contain cartoons and comic strips which make reference to the company, beginning in the nineteenth century and continuing to the present day. This material

Abstract The label “luxury” evokes vague and often unknown qualities that give a good or service the capacity to command a substantial price premium. Hence, in this article, I argue, firstly, that a core component of luxury is ignorance, or the unknown. To support this argument a systematic examination of the place of ignorance in the promotion and consumption of luxury goods and services is provided

Peter Oakley is a Senior Research Tutor at the Royal College of Art, London. His research interests include the social identities of prestige materials and luxury goods, the development and impact of ethical and sustainable material sourcing programs, contemporary uses of traditional craft techniques, and the introduction and exploitation of innovative manufacturing processes. peter.oakley@rca.ac.uk

Abstract Recently the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) restored and reconstructed a lost ceramic masterpiece for the new Europe 1600–1815 Galleries. It is a porcelain table fountain made at Meissen for an important royal wedding in 1747, which the Museum acquired in 1870. New research has revealed much about the commission, production and history of this previously mostly unknown centerpiece and it

Abstract In The Cabinet, the gallery devoted to seventeenth-century collecting, a table with a cast bronze top with three small cases stands under the window. It unites activities with museum displays, encouraging visitors to explore the gallery narrative and themes through hands-on investigation. This article discusses the thinking behind and commissioning of this activity table which was conceived

Abstract This article describes the process of developing an interactive film for the Europe Galleries that introduces visitors to key features of Venetian life around 1760. It explains the methods and decisions involved in bringing together historical research, creative dramatization, engaging presentation, community participation and various practicalities of production in order to create a participatory

Abstract Historical interiors, often known as period rooms, are included in the Europe 1600–1815 Galleries on the basis of the rooms’ quality as individual objects of art and design, their importance in providing a sense of architecture and scale, their role in enabling a change of pace and atmosphere and their great popularity with visitors. They are hugely problematic museum objects, for both practical

AbstractIn December 2015 the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) opened galleries devoted to the art and design of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century continental Europe. The gallery narrative relays ...

Abstract The Enlightenment, with its belief in reason, equality and progress, was crucial to the evolution of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe. This article explains how the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) went about exploring this movement and its values through the creation of “The Salon,” a gallery space for intellectual activity – for reflection, discussion, music and events. Displays

Elizabeth Miller was a member of the Europe 1600-1815 Galleries Concept Team, and co-edited, the publication The Arts of Living: Europe 1600–1815, (London, 2016), which accompanies the galleries. She is a senior curator of prints in the Word and Image Department at the V&A working mostly on European prints from before 1700. Between 2004 and 2006 she was Associate Director of the AHRC Centre for the

Sarah Medlam retired in 2012 as Deputy Keeper of the Furniture, Textiles and Fashion Department at the Victoria and Albert Museum, but continues as a curator emeritus. She has worked largely on European furniture during her career, firstly at the Bowes Museum and later at the V&A. She was Deputy Curator on the British Galleries Project and an original member of the Concept Team for the new Europe Galleries

Abstract In the Europe 1600–1815 Galleries two baroque chairs, a rococo daybed and a neoclassical chair evoke the opulence of late seventeenth- and eighteenth-century seating, a fitting testimony to the increasing demand for comfort in elite households of the period. All four items were re-upholstered in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This article explains the lengthy research and conservation

Abstract The Cabinet, the first of three activity areas in the Europe 1600–1815 Galleries, contains some of the most remarkable seventeenth-century European items from the V&A’s collections, revealing pan-European collecting practices from 1600 to 1720 and exploring that period’s fascination with the interplay between artifice and nature. A number of historical written and visual sources informed the

Joanna Norman was Project Curator for Europe 1600–1815 between 2012 and 2015. She joined the V&A in 2005 as the assistant curator for the 2009 “Baroque” exhibition, subsequently co-curating Treasures from Budapest at the Royal Academy of Arts and researching/coordinating Handmade in Britain, a television collaboration between the V&A and BBC4. Currently she is Deputy Head of Research at the V&A and

Abstract Europe 1600–1815 was the biggest gallery project of FuturePlan Phase II at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), with a budget of £12.5 million and 1500 square metres of display space. This article describes some of the steps involved in commissioning the design of these galleries, revealing how the objective of harmonizing setting, display, narrative and interpretation has been achieved.

Charlotte Hubbard is Head of Sculpture Conservation at the Victoria and Albert Museum. She has conserved a wide range of European and Asian sculpture, and has a specific interest in terracotta sculpture. She has been the Lead Conservator for the Medieval and Renaissance Galleries (opened 2009), Europe 1600-1815 Galleries (opened 2015), and for the Cast Courts (re-opening 2018). Chubbard@vam.ac.uk Gilded

Abstract For most products, price is the marketing variable customers react to more than any other. While this may be less so for luxury products, marketers of luxury brands still have to set a price. Most managers emphasize costs and competition when setting price. However, the third component of price, customer value or what a customer is willing to pay, is considered less often and is, in fact,

Abstract This article discusses the role of brand and product line extension strategies in balancing exclusivity and accessibility in the fashion luxury industry. Many luxury brands have long considered mass consumers as an important driver for their business growth, and their importance has kept increasing in the past two decades partly due to the emergence of e-commerce. However, many argue that

Abstract Within recent history the impact of globalization has made a crucial impression upon the contemporary understanding of luxury, largely due to the mass-expansion of luxury fashion brands around the globe. The extreme growth and visibility of these brands, substantially dictated by conglomerates such as LVMH and the Kering Group, has monopolized and for many come to epitomize the term luxury

Abstract This paper discusses the luxury of dress and luxurious spaces from the perspective of aristocratic court society. Our modern bourgeois society often defines and morally condemns luxury as conspicuous and wasteful consumption beyond essential. But aristocratic and court society, during the feudal period regarded luxury as a crucial sign and fundamental tool of social status and political ambitions

Abstract This article seeks to establish a direct relationship between objects of holy veneration in the past, and the modern-day veneration of luxury brands. It positions itself within the work of Walter Benjamin and the “aura” of cult objects articulated in his seminal essay, The Work of Art in an Age of Mechanical Reproduction. This positioning is not coincidental, but has been driven in part by

Abstract The aim of this paper is to shed light on the innovative luxury marketing strategies of the early Japanese department store, Mitsukoshi, which created a new type of spectacular and sensual consumer space combined with Western style building and interior design. Mitsukoshi was also a new, attractive urban public space in which Japanese women began to enjoy luxury settings, enact new types of

Abstract Frasier was a widely successful American sitcom that centered around its luxurious main character Frasier Crane and his eccentric family. Much of the comedy focused on character quirks and family dynamics, but this article argues that the objects within the Crane world were just as essential and illuminating as the characters themselves. From the first episode the set was utilized as a physical

Abstract Focusing on the account book of the MP and antiquary Sir Edward Dering (1598–1644), which covers the decade of his life in which he came of age, was knighted, and embarked on an ambitious political and courtly career, this article argues that his account book was a space in which Dering recorded momentous life events and meditated upon his purchases. Dering reveled in his attire, spending