Re: Change in society? -@Dave126
>Once upon a time the point of "luxury" goods was that they lasted
What d'ya mean? History is chockablock with examples of extravagent luxury goods. The eggs made by Faberge, the rare cloth dyes and gold thread for your clothing, gold statues of yourself.
Er, yes, that's my point. You've just listed some very durable luxury goods from the past, and I was saying that luxury goods in the past were usually durable.
Clothing with gold thread wasn't intended for mucking out the pigsty, it was to be worn occasionally on ceremonial occasions. That's why some of that has lasted to appear in the V&A whereas rustic smocks of the same period generally haven't. The Fabergé [sic] eggs and other artefacts are still around in vast numbers. And people who had gold (more often gilded) statues made of themselves intended them to last. Monumentum exigere aere perennius, said Virgil, but few people nowadays even know what he wrote, while there is plenty of Roman bronze still in museums.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
