I would like to apologize for not posting anything to this blog about Luxury for the last week. I assumed everyone who might be reading was absorbed by Fashion Week.
Being the contrarian, while others were looking at the latest possible trends, I was trying see if I could put the week in context. I created my own survey of the history of modern luxury, say from 1400 A.D. to 2007. I was looking for the connection between luxury and fashion.
As best I can tell those 800-plus years can be roughly sub-divided into major three periods.The dates are approximate.
1400-1800 is the period from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment. During this period Western Civilization emerged from the Dark Ages. Two countervailing focal points for luxury emerged. One was the landed aristocracy the other was the trade-based city. Think of aristocracy (the royal court and the landed nobility) as the top-down definition of luxury. This view prevailed in those regions which had strong central monarchies and whose economy was based on inherited agricultural wealth. Spain and France are the best examples and luxury was a sign of power. The city, on the other hand, was run by merchants and bankers. The Italian city-states in the south and Amsterdam in the north are examples. London came late to the game. In the city luxury was a sign of commercial success and skills at value-creating relationships. Money itself was the tool for creating wealth and was cautiously diverted to personal use. And since success in these commerical ventures depended on the trust placed in them by their counterparts, the merchants and bankers were less ostentatious with their wealth so as not to appear profligate. In this period we see that economics, social dynamics and politics all are involved in defining what constituted luxury and what was fashionable (i.e., acceptable to display). There were two different definitions based on the two different sources of wealth.
1800-1940: The Enlightenment until World War II. This broad timespan covers the demise of aristocracy as a political and social force, the rise of industry, technology and capitalism (as distinguised from commercial trading). We see the creation of mass, urban markets and the supporting mass communications such as newspapers, magazines and radio. Consumption, in the words of Veblen, becomes more conspicuous. Both the capitalists and the mass market are much more ostentatious about their affluence than any prior non-aristocratic class. Luxury is in this period is bi-modal. On the one hand it is associated with hand-made (couture) as distinguised from machine-made goods. And on the other with technology (Rolls Royce, electricity and private Pullman railroad cars) versus tradition. Europe, especially Paris, remains the arbiter of luxury and the incubator for modernism . Here the historic concept of luxury becomes more distinguished from the time-based concept of "fashion." The dividing line between the two becomes more generational.
1940-2000: Post European Luxury. The center of the economic, political and social universe shifts to the U.S. This is short American Century. In the 1950's 60% of the world's GDP comes from the U.S.. Time and technology fully replace tradition and craft. ROI replaces le roi. In European-based cultures aspiring financiers create companies (Richement, LVMH, Gucci, etc.) that amass luxury brands. As the independent maisons get gobbled up, the concept of luxury becomes further intermingled (confused?) with that of fashion. On top of this, wealth, the source of luxury patronage, is heavily concentrated not only at the top of the social structure but at the top of the age structure. Over 60% of assets are controlled by people over 55. This is a new historical phenomenon. In the 1400's the average life expectancy was 25 years. Today it is in excess of 75 years (in the U.S.).
Which leads to back to last week. There is clearly an increasing wedge between fashion and luxury. I doubt there were many representatives of the generation with the most money in the front rows before the runways. I doubt there was much attention paid to their passions. The concept of the "latest" is increasingly adrift from the concept of the "best."
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