Saintly or sinful?

LUXURY HAS A long pedigree. Homer’s warriors slaughtered each other for booty as much as for glory. Priam, the Trojan king, assembled “twelve robes, handsome, rich brocades” and “a magnificent cup the Thracians gave him once” as part of a ransom for the return of the body of his fallen son, Hector. More often, though, luxury has been portrayed as a menace to martial spirit and moral fibre. Christians associated luxury with sinful self-indulgence. In the rose window of Notre Dame, luxury is represented “as a woman titivating herself in front of a mirror”, says Christopher Berry in his study “The Idea of Luxury”, published in 1994.

Sumptuary laws were devised over the centuries to discourage dissipation, curb imports of expensive fripperies and (often hypocritically) preserve distinctions of rank. Those of the Aztecs were particularly tough: macehualtin—members of the labouring class—who displayed finery and precious objects could be put to death. The Venetian republic had three provveditori delle pompe, luxury police who ensured that sumptuary strictures were observed. Rules in the Tokugawa (Edo) period in Japan specified what sort of toys parents could give their children.

Attitudes changed with the Enlightenment and the advent of liberal economics. In the 1600s British merchants rejected “bullionist” arguments that the import of luxury goods weakened the economy by depleting gold reserves. A century later Adam Smith and David Hume portrayed luxury as a spur to industry and to social co-operation. It is “peculiar” to “polished and…luxurious ages” that “industry, knowledge and humanity are linked together by an indissoluble chain,” wrote Hume in his essay, “Of Refinement in the Arts” (originally called “Of Luxury”). Samuel Johnson introduced a feelgood factor to the enjoyment of luxury: “You cannot spend money in luxury without doing good to the poor.” For these thinkers, luxury was all tied up with commerce, liberty, peace and social mobility.

At the time they were writing, the French had already laid the groundwork for the modern luxury industry. Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Louis XIV’s finance minister, taxed imports, offered subsidies and enforced quality standards to promote French production of the sumptuous textiles and lace that were de rigueur at the Sun King’s court; then he pushed exports. “Fashion is to France what the gold mines of Peru are to Spain,” he proclaimed. But Elisabeth Ponsolle des Portes, boss of the Comité Colbert, France’s club of luxury producers, says the country’s luxury know-how goes back to the troubadours of the 12th century.

Thorstein Veblen, the economist who gave his name to the sort of goods that become more desirable as their price rises, had political grounds for sneering. Luxury is a form of waste that arose to confer status on an essentially useless class, he argued in “The Theory of the Leisure Class”, published in 1899. “Conspicuous consumption of valuable goods is a means of reputability to the gentleman of leisure.” Both Veblen’s and Hume’s ideas remain potent.