There’s a tendency to see luxury as a kind of passive consumption. My thesis attempts to counter this by asking whether modes of producing, and particularly processes of making art, can also be considered as luxurious.
-Alice Blackhurst
In a much professed age of austerity, it’s interesting to reflect on the role of luxury, as a counterpoint to a battening of hatches and tightening of budgets. And yet, what counts as ‘luxurious’ is far from clear-cut. Is luxury a designer handbag made in Milan, a day spent basking in tropical sunshine, or simply not having to do the washing up?
Today luxury is a slippery and relativistic concept, often hijacked by brand strategists and advertising agencies, and increasingly detached from a specific referent. In the 13th century, luxury had a more literal, graphic sense, used to denote the act of sexual intercourse. In the 14th century, it took on a moralising function, indicating lusting and debauchery, as suggested by the French word luxure.
The British have long associated luxury with everything French: fine wines and delicious artisan cheeses, couture fashion, afternoon promenades along shady boulevards to cafés for a leisurely coffee and a slice of tarte Tatin. France is a place we can escape to in our imagination when skies are grey - as the phenomenal sales of travelogues, such as Peter Mayle’s A Year in Provence, testify.
Alice Blackhurst is a PhD student in the Department of Modern and Medieval Languages. Her thesis (provisionally titled ‘A Life of Luxury: Life Writing and Excess in Contemporary French Literature, Art, Thought and Film’) looks at contemporary French culture in relation to luxury through the lens of literature and film.
Image: French fancies Credit: lilivanili on Flickr
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Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge
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