sociology of luxury
You are earning a six-figure sum, and you decide to buy a house in Clapham. What this says is that you, as an immensely rich person in 2024, have no higher aspiration in life than to spend the next 25 years of your life devoting70 per cent of your discretionary income on acquiring an asset that a poor person could have owned in 1924. How is that pr
... See moreRory Sutherland • Louis XIV Would Envy Your Life
The creator of Real Housewives of Clapton had a theory for why niche consumer objects have become such potent symbols online. For millennials and Gen Z-ers, material gain is more about these small, semi-expensive life-style choices—oat milk in your latte—than about bigger ones such as buying a house or having children, which are much harder to achi
... See moreKyle Chayka • Making Memes for the Global “Oat Milk Élite” | the New Yorker
What pops to mind is Café Leon Dore, Ralph’s Coffee, Bar Luce, Café A.P.C., or even the Bode Tailor Shop. The same idea applies across the board. Experience a bit of a glamorous lifestyle for only five bucks.
The Fox Is Black • Care for an Espresso? ☕️
The default assumption tends to be that it is politically important to designate everyone as beautiful, that it is a meaningful project to make sure that everyone can become, and feel, increasingly beautiful. We have hardly tried to imagine what it might look like if our culture could do the opposite—de-escalate the situation, make beauty matter le... See more
Jia Tolentino • Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion
The spectator-buyer is meant to envy herself as she will become if she buys the product. She is meant to imagine herself transformed by the product into an object of envy for others, an envy which will then justify her loving herself. One could put this another way: the publicity image steals her love of herself as she is, and offers it back to her
... See moreOf course, the most obvious example is Ozempic, the weight loss drug du jour among the elites, which works by suppressing hunger. Ozempic’s impact has been so seismic that analysts have reckoned the drug could have an unprecedented impact on food consumption. “I obviously don’t know when someone is taking drugs,” Anthony Geich, director of guest re
... See moreSerena Smith • Why Don’t Rich People Eat Anymore?
Imagine showing Louis XIV your life. Almost everything would amaze him. He would offer you half of Gascony for your flat-screen television. Even driving a 20-year-old car would delight him. The Palace of Versailles consumed more water than the city of Paris, yet the cleanliness of your water supply would still astound him, as would your flushable t
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