sociology of luxury
If we imagine a future where the majority of people have smoothed their wrinkles away with Botox, plumped up their lips with filler, sucked out their cheeks with buccal fat removal and straightened their teeth with veneers, will it become desirable to have the natural features that are becoming increasingly rare; the crooked teeth, the smile lines
... See moreDazed • Will Being ‘Ugly’ Be Aspirational One Day?
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
... See moreKyle Chayka • Making Memes for the Global “Oat Milk Élite” | the New Yorker
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
... See moreRory Sutherland • Louis XIV Would Envy Your Life
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... See more
Jia Tolentino • Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion
Luxury Paradox : The more expensive something is the less likely you are to use it, so the relationship between price and utility is an inverted U. Ferraris sit in garages; Hondas get driven.
Morgan Housel • 100 Little Ideas
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
... See moreRory Sutherland • Louis XIV Would Envy Your Life
