What I find particularly appealing in luxury is the combination of meaning, intelligence and material. Material is of superior quality,and it is therefore expensive to make mistakes in the conception. So I believe that already at the beginning, the products have more basic thought and intelligence put into them. For example in luxury cloths, the material requires hand work and it  becomes then the piece of an artisan. Great artisans are like artists, they want to create beauty, so the talented and intelligent people in the field will seek the places that give them this opportunity with regard material and working in an intelligent and creative environment. I can understand the price of luxury. In fact, I'm not sure that luxury products bring more money than the industrial. I'm thinking about Christian Lacroix whose financial collapse was so dramatic last year vs. H&M.

Well, Jessica, I’ve always denigrated luxury items, but never really see the conflict in that I’m so passionate about making them.  Saying that I don’t like owning things in general, more interested in creating things, doesn’t help answer your question.

Maybe the broader question is that of ownership.  Among cultures that haven’t been absorbed by the Western, some actually use the giving, or the destruction of their possessions to show their power.  Expressing, I suppose, either that they have so many possessions that any loss is meaningless, or on the other hand, that their personal status lies in the fact that they are so free and self sufficient that they are above the influence of goods.

That I make pieces of unique furniture, as I have been doing lately, certainly feels like I’m giving the best of myself.  When a client buys a piece they are giving me the opportunity to be vital, to continue.  I contribute but am not decentered.  So, Julie, by wearing a luxury item you are saying that there is some value in life, that doing something the best one can, from one’s center counts.  Your possession refers back to the fountain of its making.

That what is luxury differs from culture to culture is unimportant.  Still, possessing luxury as opposed to sustenance goods is a cultural act.  It infers status.

We should distinguish between mass produced luxury items and the hand made.  A luxury car tells us that the culture and society that produced it is valuable.  A handmade luxury item refers back to the existential value of an individual.

I guess that my tendency to see those who display mass produced luxury goods as inferior stems from valuing the individual, thinking that the price an individual pays facing raw life, creating from it has more value than the price in dollars.

But, wearing, say, an exceptionally nice blouse, can offer the basic, existential experience as during its creation. 

I have to conclude by changing my position.  Possessing luxury is in a way like creating.  Each mode presents as an object the question about human endeavor.  Whether it has value or not.  Wearing the blouse is about you and us.