A rchive Date
[ 10-01-2004 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Mass Media ]
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[http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/yazdani.html
How sweet it is - luxury life is hip
ALEX YAZDANI, For the London Free Press
2004-01-05
Luxury is back in style. Its trendiness ebbs and flows in part due to the economy, but more so due to music, fashion and other influencers of style. Do the words, "bling, bling," ring any bells? Turn on MuchMusic and they will.
In the 1980s, for example, luxury, glamour and high fashion were big. And big pretty much summed it up, from big hair to big cars to big gold jewelry (remember the A-team?).
The early 1990s, on the other hand, rebelled against opulence and introduced the grunge, emaciated look - an influence of bands such as Pearl Jam, Soul Asylum and Nirvana. But still, you had to pay good money to get a pair of jeans that were torn just the right way.
By the late '90s, the tide had again turned and luxury was back in style. The economic slump of the last year or two has done little to diminish the desire for luxury, and it is a trend that has continued until today. Not that luxury has ever been undesired, per se, but it hasn't always been stylish.
Lux living is now cool, and music, as always, is leading the way in defining the cool factor. But which came first, the luxury or the music?
Ever since music videos came on the air and the Internet became personally accessible, fashion, style and pop culture have had an increasingly permeating influence on our lives.
Hip hop, which was once relegated to the fringe or to a specific demographic, has now entered the mainstream and is creating a larger influence on pop culture. The ideal hip-hop life - bling, and lots of it - has influenced our individual perceptions of an ideal life. According to the music, only the finest champagne, diamonds, furs and cars will do. They are items that have become indispensable parts of the hip-hop video formula, and increasingly, that of other music genres as well.
So what about the rest of us? Those of us who live in the real world with fractionally smaller paycheques?
According to Michael J. Silverstein and Neil Fiske in their book Trading Up, we can have it too. Well, part of it a nyway. Whether it's the luxury featured in a music video, on a billboard or in a magazine, luxury is relative. The New Luxury, according to the authors, is now available to a larger percentage of the general population than ever before.
In essence, what the New Luxury means is that a consumer's buying habits do not always conform to her income levels. She "trades up" for the item that is luxurious to her. For example, she may drive a Mercedes but shop at Food Basics and the Dollar Store or she may purchase gourmet coffee but choose no-name laundry detergent over the brand name. A student might live on macaroni and cheese for a week and get her hair cut at First Choice but carry her books in a Louis Vuitton logo handbag and wear $200 Seven jeans.
Luxury is popular because it makes people feel rich, and each one of us who is not wealthy enough to own everything that makes us feel good determines what we are willing to sacrifice in order to obtain a little bit of luxury.
Even when times get rough, we still have our luxuries. Did gambling (legal or otherwise) stop when the Depression hit? Do people stop buying lottery tickets when they lose their jobs? Maybe drinking Cristal champagne on New Year's Eve is a bit too extravagant, but you did buy the more expensive imported beer instead?
It's easy to get sucked into wanting the luxurious lifestyles of the rich and famous. Stepping out of that world when it surrounds us by all forms of media can be difficult, especially since the introduction of "reality" television, the reality of which is not like any I know. Since I've been without cable for more than a year, it is a bit easier to avoid the images of luxury, but my addiction to Vanity Fair and Vogue puts the need for lux back in my lap. If I'm not careful, my bank balance could look like Tigger's playground (bounce, bounce, bounce).
How we define luxury for ourselves is a question that still remains. Whether or not we deserve luxury when, for some, luxury means running water, is another question altogether.
Alex Yazdani is a London freelance writer. Her column appears Mondays. Copyright © The London Free Press 2001,2002,2003]
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