We are living in an age of “lux populi” and, suggests a high-brow quarterly, it may be the end of deluxe.
The winter issue of the wonderful Wilson Quarterly devotes a package of stories to our current explosion of wealth, inspecting its realities, myths and impact on philanthropy. It also offers cautionary tales found in history for moneyed elites who frustrated a larger population’s cravings for success and ultimately found it hard to sustain themselves.
This includes University of Florida English and advertising professor James Twitchell’s provocative analysis of consumerism and current spending patterns. He concludes that mass merchandising of high-quality items melds with a potent craving to associate ourselves with objects of upscale title to sharply reduce those benefits linked to, and once only affordable by, those of great wealth.
What he calls the “poaching of deluxe by the middle class” runs a large gamut. It includes bottled water, Starbucks coffee, Haagen-Dazs ice cream and fancy home entertainment centers. You might not have the dough for a stretch limo or a trip to Venice, but you can rent the same limo by the hour or hop a quick flight to the Venetian in Las Vegas.
Not long ago, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor were synonymous for luxury, surrounded by the finest couture, flatware, jewelry, luggage and bed linens. But if you check the 40,000 items from their Paris home sold at a Sotheby’s auction in 1997, Twitchell notes, many are still being produced and “are within your grimy reach,” be they Chanel faux-pearl earrings priced at $360 at Chanel stores orhand-embroidered Porthault linens, now found at malls.
Our explosion of wealth reveals a group of Americans, far younger than the clients of traditional luxury, able to buy anything they desire and convinced that the fanciest consumer goods are their birthright (“Never mind that they may have been born into a family whose ancestral estate is a tract house in the suburbs, near the mall, not paid for, and whose family crest was downloaded from the Internet”). And, as they accumulate, argues Twitchell, even language itself is transformed and marks a broader change in notions of luxury, underscoring what he calls a “hijacking” of deluxe from the rich.
“Words such as gourmet, premium, boutique, chic, accessory and classic have loosened from their elite moorings and now describe such top-of-the-category items as popcorn, hamburgers, discount brokers, shampoo, scarves, ice cream, and trailer parks. `Luxury for all’ is an oxymoron, all right, the aspirational goal of modern culture, and the death knell of the real thing.”
So where does this all leave us? Twitchell asserts, “The filthy rich have only two genuine luxury items left: time and philanthropy.” By that he means the rich wind up with too much time on their hands and with so many acquisitions, they must start giving stuff away, with “competitive philanthropy” now a game to pass away idle hours.
His ultimate analysis, rife with a certain cynicism, comes up a bit short. There remain gross, unbridgeable disparities in wealth, even if Michael Graves-designed toasters are available at Target and working-class grade schoolers wear Tiffany bracelets. There is an ever-accelerating manufacture of products for the elite that can’t be mimicked, such as the latest Gulfstream private jet or underground basketball court, not to forget armies of servants. There is the elite’s ready access to political, social and cultural influence, as manifested by the hobnobbing at the just-concluding World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
And then there is that element of time, the most precious of commodities. Money does make it easier to be master of the clock, and to do so for the most productive of purposes. The implicit caricature of idle rich here is unfair, blind to the workaholic, BlackBerry-tied essence of our new tycoons.
The consumer goods are all very nice, but how many of us dream of wrenching ourselves from mundane duties, leaving those to aides as do the wealthy, and just having the convenience and time to more productively think and act? That can take money.
(The Wilson Quarterly is available through the Woodrow Wilson International School for Scholars, 1-800-829-5108)
