Haute couture, the luxury industry par excellence, emerged during the era of high capitalism in the 19th century. Great couturiers, such as Charles Frederick Worth, became recognized as “artists of luxury.” They also began to transform dressmaking from a small-scale craft to an international business. Mass-produced imitations of fashionable luxury items proliferated, as middle-class consumers emulated the buying habits of the newly rich. Women’s dress, in particular, became more ostentatious, leading Thorstein Veblen to coin the immortal phrase “conspicuous consumption.”

Class distinctions were central to the phenomenon of luxury, but the feminization of luxury also became an issue. Wealthy men dressed their wives and mistresses lavishly, while adopting for themselves a relatively austere style. In the early 20th century, women also began to acquire a taste for elegant simplicity. The couturier Paul Poiret notoriously accused Coco Chanel of creating “poverty de luxe,” but her less-is-more design philosophy was in line with a wider movement toward modernism.
 

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