object(WP_Query)#382 (41) { ["query_vars"]=> array(49) { ["tag"]=> string(6) "europe" ["error"]=> string(0) "" ["m"]=> int(0) ["p"]=> int(0) ["post_parent"]=> string(0) "" ["subpost"]=> string(0) "" ["subpost_id"]=> string(0) "" ["attachment"]=> string(0) "" ["attachment_id"]=> int(0) ["name"]=> string(0) "" ["hour"]=> string(0) "" ["static"]=> string(0) "" ["pagename"]=> string(0) "" ["page_id"]=> int(0) ["second"]=> string(0) "" ["minute"]=> string(0) "" ["day"]=> int(0) ["monthnum"]=> int(0) ["year"]=> int(0) ["w"]=> int(0) ["category_name"]=> string(0) "" ["cat"]=> string(0) "" ["tag_id"]=> string(2) "96" ["author_name"]=> string(0) "" ["feed"]=> string(0) "" ["tb"]=> string(0) "" ["paged"]=> int(0) ["comments_popup"]=> string(0) "" ["meta_key"]=> string(0) "" ["meta_value"]=> string(0) "" ["preview"]=> string(0) "" ["category__in"]=> array(0) { } ["category__not_in"]=> array(0) { } ["category__and"]=> array(0) { } ["post__in"]=> array(0) { } ["post__not_in"]=> array(0) { } ["tag__in"]=> array(0) { } ["tag__not_in"]=> array(0) { } ["tag__and"]=> array(0) { } ["tag_slug__in"]=> array(1) { [0]=> string(6) "europe" } ["tag_slug__and"]=> array(0) { } ["posts_per_page"]=> int(5) ["caller_get_posts"]=> bool(false) ["suppress_filters"]=> bool(false) ["post_type"]=> string(0) "" ["nopaging"]=> bool(false) ["comments_per_page"]=> string(2) "50" ["order"]=> string(4) "DESC" ["orderby"]=> string(27) "wp_wmr_posts.post_date DESC" } ["request"]=> string(608) " SELECT SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS wp_wmr_posts.* FROM wp_wmr_posts INNER JOIN wp_wmr_term_relationships ON (wp_wmr_posts.ID = wp_wmr_term_relationships.object_id) INNER JOIN wp_wmr_term_taxonomy ON (wp_wmr_term_relationships.term_taxonomy_id = wp_wmr_term_taxonomy.term_taxonomy_id) INNER JOIN wp_wmr_terms ON (wp_wmr_term_taxonomy.term_id = wp_wmr_terms.term_id) WHERE 1=1 AND wp_wmr_term_taxonomy.taxonomy = 'post_tag' AND wp_wmr_terms.slug IN ('europe') AND wp_wmr_posts.post_type = 'post' AND (wp_wmr_posts.post_status = 'publish') GROUP BY wp_wmr_posts.ID ORDER BY wp_wmr_posts.menu_order ASC LIMIT 0, 5" ["post_count"]=> int(1) ["current_post"]=> int(-1) ["in_the_loop"]=> bool(false) ["post"]=> object(stdClass)#323 (24) { ["ID"]=> int(169) ["post_author"]=> string(1) "1" ["post_date"]=> string(19) "2010-05-14 00:00:16" ["post_date_gmt"]=> string(19) "2010-05-14 07:00:16" ["post_content"]=> string(7205) "Contrary to the commonly held belief, the etymology of the word luxury, "LUV" in Greek, refers to what is loosened, separated, dislocated or out of joint—and which, moved thus, finds itself in excess; an instance of disorder and debauchery. Nothing throws luxury back to light (Lux; Greek root LEUK- or in Latin LUC-)…nothing except an imaginary construction into Western culture--especially in Europe where it is associated with the luster of that which shines. Today, luxury generates its attraction from what is “sub-lime” (past the limit) in it: what is illegitimate to portray, what the social norm excludes from representation, and therefore invites the representation of. By definition, what is beyond the range is distant, unattainable. The industry of luxury is based on the sublime, meaning the artificial creation of a distance that signifies that something is hard to attain, which therefore makes it rare, and exclusive. It is however, a paradox; luxury isn't unattainable, since it can be bought, and the desired objects can be obtained. Luxury creates the conditions for a perpetual tension between what is possible and what isn't, between what is unattainable but at the same time, procurable. The excitement of the luxury client comes from the difficulties he has to face before getting product, whether it is a question of time (waiting for a special watch to be created) or money; in luxury the possibility of the non-possible leads the desire. In the same way, luxury plays with what is hidden to all but a select few, but at the same time shown, because it must be staged, offered to view, known by all, to attain its luxurious status in the eyes of society. Because in luxury, what is desired is the desire of others, the manifestation of one's singularity, one's difference, displayed publicly. The communication campaigns of the luxury industry, where stars and celebrities are shown as icons surrounded by luxurious objects, constitute one of the best examples of this rarity, shown to the masses. The product is not alone, but presented as someone’s belonging, someone who had the chance to get something unattainable, to reduce the distance between himself and the product. Luxury invokes a form of eternal desire, of which the final goal is to defy the rules of its time, even today when the economy of exchange has become instantaneous. In luxury, the image of the past and of the future, therefore coincide; its representations turn it into a signifier of the past, idealized as something that will never be again. In the same time, this image is also a vector of Utopia, moving along the image of an unprecedented future. The representations of luxury, through and beyond the surface of appearances then sends back to a being of uber- or meta humanity, to stories and characters, to affects and sensibilities that impose the idea that, to paraphrase the famous TV series, luxury "comes from the beyond." Inspired by luxury, the past itself becomes alien, as is exemplified by the museographic representation of luxury, shown vacuum-sealed, independently of the superannuated poetry of the materials, and the reality of the social customs, without any anthropological, or ethnographic, or even political, concern that would risk giving the objects an historical dimension. The ultimate goal in creation and product design in luxury, whether it is for a bag, a jewel or even for clothes, is to reach eternity, to defy time and fashion by creating something that just look beautiful, from everybody’s point of view. While “luxury” is relative and varies according to different people—to some, it's a Cartier ring, to others, a few leisurely hours wrestled from a day of intense work—the nature of the desire for luxury is universal: Luxury creates, above all, a break from normality, from dailyness, from what Mircea Eliade called “The Profane,” as opposed to the sacred. Through their desire for luxury, consumers manifest their need to experience new, rare and different situations—extra-ordinary ones. The luxury industry creates the desire by sacralizing the objects and therefore by making the consumer believe that they will transform their existential life through that desired object. Living in luxury, wearing a very special watch, a unique bag, a designer dress, is placing oneself in the realm of a rare and exceptional kind of life. In our civilization, the luxury industry, and the culture of luxury, are closely linked to possession and therefore to the object, to the product. Yet we now live in the era of information where the Internet, particularly, has become one of the principal media of communication. The Internet, and more generally the information industry, only produce immaterial goods, goods which move further and further away from the traditional principles of the economic value, while their symbolic power only increases. They are the ones that today, require the consumer's desire, because they are synonymous with socialization, recognition, but also knowledge, control and power. The immaterial goods transform the notion of possession, since one’s access is obtained through a mode of appropriation without ownership. This lateral translation of the object of desire (which to simplify this idea, moves from the realm of reality to the immaterial), is a significant issue for the luxury industry, which has built desire and its myth on material goods. Jeremy Rifkin calls this the “Age of Access,” and suggests that it modifies the space and time of perception, creating a "here" that is "nowhere" and a real-time in which we travel without having to move. The paradigm of Access also influences the relationship between perception and knowledge of the other. We know each other without seeing or hearing each other. In other words, we are developing new modes of representing reality and, as a consequence, new imaginary worlds where concepts of presence, sensuality, embodiment are excluded. The affects and the emotional links to these modes of representation are still unknown, but one could bet they are evolving as well. Thus, the conditions of identification of what we calls 'luxury" become now uncertain. The perceptual tools that allow us to perceive something as "luxurious" are on the verge of being replaced by sensitivity as defined by technology, for which the nature of desire will most likely be different. by Lionel Ochs methos.fr Lionel Ochs is a cultural anthropologist and filmmaker based in Paris. He has been working on various subjects and doing fieldwork in different regions of the world. For a few years now, he has been asked by the luxury goods industry to investigate the topic of luxury through research and documentary films." 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["post_status"]=> string(7) "publish" ["comment_status"]=> string(4) "open" ["ping_status"]=> string(4) "open" ["post_password"]=> string(0) "" ["post_name"]=> string(6) "luxury" ["to_ping"]=> string(0) "" ["pinged"]=> string(0) "" ["post_modified"]=> string(19) "2010-05-18 07:56:16" ["post_modified_gmt"]=> string(19) "2010-05-18 14:56:16" ["post_content_filtered"]=> string(0) "" ["post_parent"]=> int(0) ["guid"]=> string(34) "http://wantmag.com/2010/05/luxury/" ["menu_order"]=> int(8) ["post_type"]=> string(4) "post" ["post_mime_type"]=> string(0) "" ["comment_count"]=> string(2) "10" ["filter"]=> string(3) "raw" } ["comments"]=> NULL ["comment_count"]=> int(0) ["current_comment"]=> int(-1) ["comment"]=> NULL ["found_posts"]=> string(1) "1" ["max_num_pages"]=> float(1) ["max_num_comment_pages"]=> int(0) ["is_single"]=> bool(false) ["is_preview"]=> bool(false) ["is_page"]=> bool(false) ["is_archive"]=> bool(true) ["is_date"]=> bool(false) ["is_year"]=> bool(false) ["is_month"]=> bool(false) ["is_day"]=> bool(false) ["is_time"]=> bool(false) ["is_author"]=> bool(false) ["is_category"]=> bool(false) ["is_tag"]=> bool(true) ["is_tax"]=> bool(false) ["is_search"]=> bool(false) ["is_feed"]=> bool(false) ["is_comment_feed"]=> bool(false) ["is_trackback"]=> bool(false) ["is_home"]=> bool(false) ["is_404"]=> bool(false) ["is_comments_popup"]=> bool(false) ["is_admin"]=> bool(false) ["is_attachment"]=> bool(false) ["is_singular"]=> bool(false) ["is_robots"]=> bool(false) ["is_posts_page"]=> bool(false) ["is_paged"]=> bool(false) ["query"]=> array(1) { ["tag"]=> string(6) "europe" } ["posts"]=> &array(1) { [0]=> object(stdClass)#323 (24) { ["ID"]=> int(169) ["post_author"]=> string(1) "1" ["post_date"]=> string(19) "2010-05-14 00:00:16" ["post_date_gmt"]=> string(19) "2010-05-14 07:00:16" ["post_content"]=> string(7205) "Contrary to the commonly held belief, the etymology of the word luxury, "LUV" in Greek, refers to what is loosened, separated, dislocated or out of joint—and which, moved thus, finds itself in excess; an instance of disorder and debauchery. Nothing throws luxury back to light (Lux; Greek root LEUK- or in Latin LUC-)…nothing except an imaginary construction into Western culture--especially in Europe where it is associated with the luster of that which shines. Today, luxury generates its attraction from what is “sub-lime” (past the limit) in it: what is illegitimate to portray, what the social norm excludes from representation, and therefore invites the representation of. By definition, what is beyond the range is distant, unattainable. The industry of luxury is based on the sublime, meaning the artificial creation of a distance that signifies that something is hard to attain, which therefore makes it rare, and exclusive. It is however, a paradox; luxury isn't unattainable, since it can be bought, and the desired objects can be obtained. Luxury creates the conditions for a perpetual tension between what is possible and what isn't, between what is unattainable but at the same time, procurable. The excitement of the luxury client comes from the difficulties he has to face before getting product, whether it is a question of time (waiting for a special watch to be created) or money; in luxury the possibility of the non-possible leads the desire. In the same way, luxury plays with what is hidden to all but a select few, but at the same time shown, because it must be staged, offered to view, known by all, to attain its luxurious status in the eyes of society. Because in luxury, what is desired is the desire of others, the manifestation of one's singularity, one's difference, displayed publicly. The communication campaigns of the luxury industry, where stars and celebrities are shown as icons surrounded by luxurious objects, constitute one of the best examples of this rarity, shown to the masses. The product is not alone, but presented as someone’s belonging, someone who had the chance to get something unattainable, to reduce the distance between himself and the product. Luxury invokes a form of eternal desire, of which the final goal is to defy the rules of its time, even today when the economy of exchange has become instantaneous. In luxury, the image of the past and of the future, therefore coincide; its representations turn it into a signifier of the past, idealized as something that will never be again. In the same time, this image is also a vector of Utopia, moving along the image of an unprecedented future. The representations of luxury, through and beyond the surface of appearances then sends back to a being of uber- or meta humanity, to stories and characters, to affects and sensibilities that impose the idea that, to paraphrase the famous TV series, luxury "comes from the beyond." Inspired by luxury, the past itself becomes alien, as is exemplified by the museographic representation of luxury, shown vacuum-sealed, independently of the superannuated poetry of the materials, and the reality of the social customs, without any anthropological, or ethnographic, or even political, concern that would risk giving the objects an historical dimension. The ultimate goal in creation and product design in luxury, whether it is for a bag, a jewel or even for clothes, is to reach eternity, to defy time and fashion by creating something that just look beautiful, from everybody’s point of view. While “luxury” is relative and varies according to different people—to some, it's a Cartier ring, to others, a few leisurely hours wrestled from a day of intense work—the nature of the desire for luxury is universal: Luxury creates, above all, a break from normality, from dailyness, from what Mircea Eliade called “The Profane,” as opposed to the sacred. Through their desire for luxury, consumers manifest their need to experience new, rare and different situations—extra-ordinary ones. The luxury industry creates the desire by sacralizing the objects and therefore by making the consumer believe that they will transform their existential life through that desired object. Living in luxury, wearing a very special watch, a unique bag, a designer dress, is placing oneself in the realm of a rare and exceptional kind of life. In our civilization, the luxury industry, and the culture of luxury, are closely linked to possession and therefore to the object, to the product. Yet we now live in the era of information where the Internet, particularly, has become one of the principal media of communication. The Internet, and more generally the information industry, only produce immaterial goods, goods which move further and further away from the traditional principles of the economic value, while their symbolic power only increases. They are the ones that today, require the consumer's desire, because they are synonymous with socialization, recognition, but also knowledge, control and power. The immaterial goods transform the notion of possession, since one’s access is obtained through a mode of appropriation without ownership. This lateral translation of the object of desire (which to simplify this idea, moves from the realm of reality to the immaterial), is a significant issue for the luxury industry, which has built desire and its myth on material goods. Jeremy Rifkin calls this the “Age of Access,” and suggests that it modifies the space and time of perception, creating a "here" that is "nowhere" and a real-time in which we travel without having to move. The paradigm of Access also influences the relationship between perception and knowledge of the other. We know each other without seeing or hearing each other. In other words, we are developing new modes of representing reality and, as a consequence, new imaginary worlds where concepts of presence, sensuality, embodiment are excluded. The affects and the emotional links to these modes of representation are still unknown, but one could bet they are evolving as well. Thus, the conditions of identification of what we calls 'luxury" become now uncertain. The perceptual tools that allow us to perceive something as "luxurious" are on the verge of being replaced by sensitivity as defined by technology, for which the nature of desire will most likely be different. by Lionel Ochs methos.fr Lionel Ochs is a cultural anthropologist and filmmaker based in Paris. He has been working on various subjects and doing fieldwork in different regions of the world. For a few years now, he has been asked by the luxury goods industry to investigate the topic of luxury through research and documentary films." 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