Sublime
An inspiration engine for ideas
The Profile Interview: Author Rob Henderson on Why We Hold ‘Luxury Beliefs’ and Develop ‘Status Anxiety’
Today, material goods are plentiful but their ability to reveal or enable social mobility is increasingly limited. There is no longer a dominant leisure class; in its place the aspirational class is rewriting the patterns of consumption while simultaneously disengaging in conventional material conspicuous consumption.
Elizabeth Currid-Halkett • The Sum of Small Things: A Theory of the Aspirational Class
People worry about culture because they know it sets the agenda for the future.
And who wouldn’t want to be in charge of that?
Wall Street and the City held the crown through economic dominance, regulatory capture, and cultural philanthropy. They faltered in 2008 and never regained their pre-crisis legitimacy. The presumptive heir to the throne, th
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The bottle service club today pitches Goffman’s “action” to the world’s new elite; it encourages the rich to flaunt their riches, to display wealth for display’s sake. Bottle service clubs are predicated on conspicuous consumption, a term coined, in 1899, by Thorstein Veblen, the quirky Norwegian American economist.
Ashley Mears • Very Important People: Status and Beauty in the Global Party Circuit
Dror Poleg • Dror’s Substack | Substack
1. Patricians
high wealth, low need for status
ex: Loro Piana
2. Parvenus
high wealth, high need
ex: Birkin lawsuit
3. Poseurs
low wealth, high need
ex: dupes, Stanleys
4. Proletarians
low wealth, low need
ex: Carhartt