"Luxury” signifies far more than the mere enjoyment of expensive things --it implies an excessive indulgence in sensual pleasures. Indeed, the very word once meant “lust” or “lasciviousness.” Luxury has always been controversial, and many influential thinkers believed luxury to be morally corrupting. “On the soft beds of luxury, most kingdoms have expired,” pontificated one writer, while the poet Milton imagined ominously that “All was now turned… to luxury and riot.”

But after centuries of opprobrium, the politics of luxury began to change. A new belief developed in the 18th century that luxury could be a positive force contributing to the wealth of nations. Private vices, such as extravagance and vanity, could be public virtues, because they provided work for countless artisans. Not everyone was convinced. Luxury might be economically enriching, admitted the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, but it subverted equality and virtuous simplicity. While moralists and economists argued about whether luxury created wealth or squandered it, everyone recognized that luxury goods made the social hierarchy visible.

The model of luxury was aristocratic and artisanal. Even though labor costs were low, many products were rare, difficult to obtain, or produced only in limited quantities. A fashionable robe à la française, for example, might be made from yards of expensive silk brocade draped over side hoops, trimmed with handmade lace, and elaborately accessorized. For the most part, anonymous artisans produced luxury goods for an elite clientele. There were, as yet, no luxury brands or “name” designers, although Rose Bertin was notorious as Marie Antoinette’s “Minister of Fashion.” 

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