What happens to luxury during a global epidemic? Are we able to live a luxurious life in the midst of our rapidly changing lives? Luxury can feel so external and yet, life today feels so internal. Luxury is also theater. The exquisite gown that dazzles and the magnificent car that glides past others, the Instagrammed vacation. Luxurious’s charm is also based on the admiration, desire, or even envy of others.
Luxury, as it is sometimes called, can be a team sport. This involves an audience that recognises and evaluates differences in quality or exclusivity. It is not easy to play this sport, as distinctions among things can lead people to make distinctions (and divisions) among them, creating hierarchies of privilege, wealth, taste and knowledge. Luxury is a social communication system, a language with meanings that can be agreed upon and maintained by a collective. This is how luxury signals function.
These signals were lost when the pandemic struck. It caused us to be isolated physically and reduced our chances of “performing” our luxuries. Travel was cut or severely curtailed. There were also many openings, galas, parties and other occasions for gathering and showing. Is luxury doomed if there is no social interaction?
It turns out, not at all. In fact, luxury sales overall have risen during the pandemic, as the wealthiest have grown wealthier, and even the less-than-billionaire class, having been stuck at home, has accumulated more cash to spend and more time to spend it.
Luxury has seen a surge in demand, encompassing both traditional luxury products as well as newer digital ways to project luxury theater that is pandemic-safe. Luxury has not disappeared, but it is more important than ever. It is like a river flowing through rocks. It simply seeks out new paths.
Two Latin terms are responsible for the term “luxury”: “luxus,” which refers to sumptuousness, excess, and “luxuria”, which denotes offensiveness in moral, or even carnal, senses. Elizabethan English referred to luxury as adultery or lechery. Claudio makes a mockery of Hero’s sexual chastity in “Much Ado About Nothing,” claiming that Hero knows how luxurious a bed feels.
The pursuit of luxury may not be viewed as a moral or sexual vice anymore, but it still has a connection to our bodily, or at the very least, sensorial, delectation. Because covid is a medical condition, it has changed the relationship between luxury consumption and our bodies.
Personal health has been a subject of constant anxiety and conversation since the pandemic. While having access to the most prestigious doctors and treatments is an obvious privilege, health luxury goes far beyond that. Being able to maintain a high level personal fitness — such as being perfectly Pilatified — is a sign that you are a privilege. In a time of epidemic, fitness can mean more.
Fit bodies can be seen as symbolic armor. They provide protection against illness and even death. PatriziaCalefato, an Italian philosopher, wrote in her book “Luxury… Lifestyle and Excess” that “luxury… challenges death itself.” This protection can be expensive. Or, to quote Leslie Ghize of Tobe TDG’s executive vice president, “Wellness” is the luxury of being healthy. (Ghize, who is also the dean of Parsons School of Design, is on the Parsons School of Design board of governors.
Affluent fitness and wellness enthusiasts abandoned expensive private trainers, gyms, and group classes. In the second half of 2020, the industry lost $13.9 billion. As a result, more expensive alternatives became popular. Sales revenue from home fitness equipment increased more than twice in the first seven month of the pandemic. It reached over $2.3 Billion.
Even the simplest workout accessories can be transformed into luxury. Louis Vuitton handweights are made of lustrous metal and engraved by the LV logo. Yves Saint Laurent dumbbells are a bargain at only $2,000. These dumbbells are beautiful enough to double up as home decor once you’re done using your reps.
This may be how we “do” luxury in a pandemic. We attend to our bodies while simultaneously transcending and escaping them.
“Connected fitness” was a new trend in home exercise during the pandemic. Equipment-plus-digital-subscription systems such as Peloton (with a $32 billion market capitalization) and Mirror (bought by Lululemon for $500 million in 2020) have attracted huge followings. The luxury of these systems is not just in the purchase of gym-quality equipment (which can cost thousands), but also in accessing premium online classes and instructors (for an additional fee). Although virtual fitness has been around since before the advent of covid, this sector saw a boom in sales last year. (Peloton stock rose by 440 percent between 2020 and now, although it has fallen in recent years.
The virtual fitness market has proven so popular that Christian Dior was tempted to design a line, Dior Vibe. It was created by Maria Grazia Chiuri, the creative director, and Technogym (an Italian high-end gym equipment company). Fashion lovers now have the option to run on wired-in Dior treadmills, and perhaps even imagine their bodies being “designed” for Dior.
These digital systems promote bodily fitness and dematerialize the experience, removing the risk of injury. All that is left are your trainers, classmates, and the gym itself. Even though you’re focusing on your physical body, the alternative space allows you to escape the ordinary, covid-ridden world. This luxury is also rooted in escapism.
Hydra Studios, which has two Manhattan branches and will soon have more, is an escapism gym. Hydra, founded by Marie Kloor (former Wall Street professional) and Dan Nielsen (former Wall Street professional), specializes in “personal, unmaterialized” fitness. Hydra members have the option to reserve small to medium-sized private studios that are closed off with heavy curtains for a monthly fee. These tiny gyms are only able to accommodate one person. Each one contains a digitally connected cardio machine such as a Technogym cycle, Hydrow rower and “smart” reflector. Additionally, iPads are linked to the machines to provide virtual options (group classes or digital landscapes) to help organize your workout.
Hydra’s modernist, neutral decor feels peaceful and almost anesthetizing. It’s hard to tell who is there in the darkened corridor of white curtains. The effect can be disorienting. Or maybe you’re not. You’re rowing or cycling through imaginary landscapes (the Caribbean! The Alps ), but actually sitting indoors in an area the size of a small bedroom.
This may be how we “do” luxury lifestyle during pandemic: taking care of our bodies while also escaping or transcending them. Hydra gyms can offer a form of luxury alternative for some. Kloor reports that some members enjoy working out alone, free from the pressure of worrying about their appearance. Luxury is sometimes found in the absence and lack of display.
Time seems to have been passing more rapidly and less quickly for many people. Stranger still is the realization that the pandemic itself won’t have an end point. The struggle will continue on until the day we can celebrate its end. The experts say that instead, the coronavirus is going to become endemic, rather than pandemic. It will hover over us like an invisible shadow.
Covid is the term for disorienting us in time and in space. We have solved spatial disorientation using virtual experiences of many kinds. Temporal disorientation is more difficult because we cannot simulate or escape time.
This is why time may prove to be the greatest luxury in the face of the pandemic. This privilege might be the most valuable and rarest.