The state of luxury

At the turn of the 21st century, luxury has emerged as a robust global industry. The creation of giant conglomerates, the reorganisation of this sector under the aegis of influential investors, the conquest of new markets–notably in China– epitomise its expansive trend. Luxury is the industry that nowadays generates the most substantial profits, and it has grown exponentially over the last twenty years. It appears to embody the triumph of materialism, glorifying the ostentation of wealth. Luxury is associated with lavish spending, excess and transgression.

Another intrinsic feature of luxury is scarcity. Having established itself as a mass industry constantly questions its quality of scarcity. The globalisation of luxury results in a tension between standardisation and the re-emergence of a register of diversity framed in terms of heritage, identity, authenticity and specific know-how. The complex relationship between elitism and trivialisation is also a driving force for luxury’s ceaseless reinvention.

Luxury does not only present itself as a universe of images and symbols. It constantly produces its own reflexivity in the narrative it weaves around its products. This narrative mobilises a much broader set of representations in connection with the state of the world, the status of the individual and the relationship between nature and culture. Far from being a isolated in its bubble hermetic to the world's evolutions, the luxury industry never ceases to nourish the social imagination and echoes history and contemporary changes. The recent period bears witness to this, as the ecological and health crises have led on to questioning the deleterious effects of globalisation by placing the question of survival and the value of sustainability centre stage.

In order to decipher the universal and complex phenomenon of luxury, the issue draws on different perspectives (anthropology, history, philosophy, psychoanalysis, semiology, sociology) in order to better understand the diversity of experiences and creations, as well as the recent evolutions that contribute to reconfiguring the universes of luxury.

Translated by Marc Abélès and proofread by Sébastien Le Pipec