Lusso

A distortion of meaning. Luxury appears in the history of mankind from Greek philosophical schools – and even up to the Enlightenment - as excess, a concession to a frivolous and empty corruption of morals, a frenzied pursuit of vanities and false pleasures that weaken the spirit. Then there is that distortion, that new meaning that luxury takes on in the nineteenth century, with the proliferation of consumption: it is modernity that characterizes it as something different, elitist: products are no longer sold in shops; no, now they are prominently displayed in department stores - and the dimension immediately becomes refined, chic.