See also: Luxury (homonymy)

The luxury (lat. luxus ) indicates the lifestyle consisting in practicing extravagant expenditure and superfluous, with an aim of surrounding itself by a sumptuous refinement or by pure taste of ostentation, in opposition to the factors raising only of the strict need. By extension, the luxury also indicates all the elements and practices making it possible to arrive to this standard of living. This aspect of uselessness is so outstanding that it is at the base of the pejorative expression “It is luxury! ” which condemns an unreasonable investment.

The true luxury generally does not appear in only one form or realization and agrees better with a certain profusion seeming if possible unlimited. The luxury is thus naturally associated with the richness which allows investments which aim at pure the Agrément and not the Profit. In the luxury, abundance joins superfluity to confer a feeling of great material ease and refinement of the Goût. At the 18th century, this particular Sensation was fixed by Voltaire in a paradoxical Formula One nothing: “Superfluity, thing very necessary. ” (poem the Society man , 1736).

The luxury is expressed in all the fields where the Plaisir imports since it contributes to it by a particular register and some time almost entirely constitutes it, particularly for those which have the taste of the luxury . Thus, the luxury can it take part in a type of epicureanism and be subjectively lived under extremely modest appearances.

The luxury supports the Créativité and the technical Innovation, it stimulates the multiple branches of industry which can consolidate all " consommateur" in the feeling which he enjoys a certain ease and a certain taste. Moreover, when luxury - though always a little élitiste and exceptional - can reconcile itself with the seductions of the mode, it encourages with purchases of renewal which can more correspond to no real need but prove very favorable to the Commerce.

An luxury item represents before a whole quality control mark: the purchaser knows by advance that it was produced thanks to a know-how at the top of " the state of the art" of a profession and is thus ready to pay the scarcity of such a product.

The luxury was not always regarded as appreciable a economic stimulant: in France at the 18th century, he was generally shown of many evils like increasing with the detriment of the elementary needs for the poor or supporting the corruption of manners, in particular those of youth: according to Diderot “the luxury ruins the rich person and redoubles the misery of the poor. ” (Living room of 1767). However Paris acquired as of this time a capital reputation of of the luxury even if this reputation were not tasted of everyone: “That the luxury, growing the every day, starts to become an expensive and insupportable use in the world which invented it, that it is from here it is spread in all Europe… ”. (Panegyrical Massillon, of Saint Louis ).

Luxate in the dwelling

Sectors

• Arts of the table
• Silverware
• Crystal manufacture
• Household linen
• Goldsmithery
• Automobile Porcelain
• Floral art
• Haute couture
• Lace
• Mulquinerie
• Passementerie
• Ribbon manufacture
• Silk
• Clock industry
• Jewelry
• Leather working
• mode
• Perfumery
• Spirituous

See too

• Craft industry of art
• Undertaken sector of the luxury
• Undertaken French of the sector of the luxury

• Committee Colbert

External bonds

• luxury, engine of the E-trade
• Christophe Bormans, Jesus with Joyce and the Luxury in Ics: “Not serviam”! Text of the intervention to the Annual conference on the Luxury organized by the newspaper the Echoes on the topic New Codes of the Luxury , on Tuesday, June 7, 2005.