Designer fatigue

Different concepts of luxury may be inferred from a comparison of the wedding feast of Charles Bovary and Emma Rouault with the habits of their contemporary the Duke of Wellington. At the Bovary wedding were served four sirloins, six chicken fricassées, stewed veal, three legs of mutton, four chitterlings (with sorrel), brandy, wine, foaming sweet cider, yellow custards, tarts and sweets with an architectural cake comprising angelica, oranges, nuts, jam and chocolate.

The austere Duke’s ‘conception of duty’, David Piper wrote, ‘did not provoke popularity at all times’. His daily routine was tea with bread and butter in the morning, no lunch and an unvaryingly simple dinner of a joint with a pudding and iced water. The difference between the Bovarys and the Duke was a matter not only of taste, but also of aspiration and prestige, although these things are, of course, all muddled. A V&A exhibition called What is Luxury? and English Heritage’s re-presentation of Apsley House, Wellington’s London home, bring these notions under modern scrutiny.

To Gibbon and Ruskin ‘luxury’ meant excess, arrogance, opulence and depravity, but recently the word has enjoyed a semantic evolution. Experts may debate the timeline, but perhaps the first evidence of a change occurred circa 1959 when Ford called a certain model of the Anglia ‘de luxe’ on account of its having a heater and a little extra chrome. Just as ‘design’ was once used to indicate products with exceptional function, beauty and innovation, today ‘luxury’ has usurped the word’s role as an indicator of exceptionality. No one uses ‘designer’ as an adjective any more, other than ironically.

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Thus, as the national museum of design, the V&A’s interest in defining luxury. What is Luxury? can be found in the museum’s main entrance, just to the left of the conga lines for the exhibition of luxury brand Alexander McQueen.