What happens to luxury when there is a global pandemic? Does the pursuit of luxury seem incompatible with our dramatically altered lives? Luxury can seem so external. Life lately feels so internal. Theater is a big part of luxury: the exquisite gown that dazzles, the car that glides past the onlookers, and the vacation with the most Instagram-worthy photos. Luxury’s appeal is partly due to the admiration, desire and even envy of others.
Luxury can also be a group sport that involves a large audience that values and recognizes quality and exclusivity. This sport has a very uneven playing field. Because distinctions between things can lead to distinctions and divisions among people, which in turn enforce hierarchies of wealth, privilege, taste, or knowledge. Luxury is a social communication network, a language that has meanings and is upheld by a group. This is how luxury signals work.
These signals were muddled by the pandemic. It made us more isolated, which reduced our opportunities to “perform” our luxury luxuries. Travel was severely curtailed or stopped altogether, along with many openings, galas, and other opportunities for social interaction and display. Luxury is doomed without social interaction?
It turns out that it is not. 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.
The quest for luxury has only increased in recent years. It now includes a growing market for traditional luxury items as well as more inward-focused luxury versions. There are also novel digital methods that allow luxury theater to be projected in a way that is safe from pandemics. Luxury is not disappearing. It has sought out other routes, much like a river that is diverted by rocks.
Two Latin terms give rise to the word “luxury”, “luxus” meaning sumptuousness or excess and “luxuria” which is offensive in a moral or carnal sense. Elizabethan English used the term “luxury” to denote adulterousness or lechery. Claudio slanders Hero’s sexual purity in “Much Ado About Nothing” by claiming that Hero “knows the heat of a luxurious mattress.”
Although we no longer view the pursuit of luxury as a sexual or moral vice, it is still tied to our bodily or sensorial delicacy. Covid, a physical disease, has altered the relationship between luxury lifestyle and our bodies.
Personal health has become a constant topic of anxiety and conversation due to the pandemic. Access to the best doctors and treatments is a significant privilege. But luxury in health goes beyond the medical. A high level of personal fitness, such as a perfectly Pilatified body, has been a mark of privilege for a long time. Fitness is more important in times of pandemic.
A healthy body can feel like symbolic armor. It is a way to escape from disease and protect yourself from it. Patrizia Calefato, an Italian theorist, writes that luxury… challenges the idea that death is. And that protection can be costly. Or, as Leslie Ghize (executive vice president of forecasting firm Tobe TDG) puts it, “Wellness…the luxury of keeping oneself in good shape” (Ghize is a member of Parsons School of Design’s board of governors, where I am dean of Art History and Theory.
Affluent health and fitness buffs dropped expensive gyms, private trainers, and group classes. However, upscale options gained popularity. The industry lost $13.9B in the second half 2020. The pandemic saw more than doubling of sales revenue for home fitness equipment in the first seven months, to $2.3 billion.
Even the simplest of workout accessories can become luxury: Louis Vuitton handweights cost about $3,000 and are made from lustrous metal. Yves Saint Laurent dumbbells in black marble are a great deal at just $2,000. They are all attractive enough to be used as decor in your home after you’re done with your reps.
Perhaps this is the way we have a luxury lifestyle during pandemic: attend to our bodies and simultaneously escape, or transcend, them.
The pandemic triggered a boom in connected fitness, which is the practice of exercising at home. 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. These machines are expensive, but the luxury is in having access to top-quality online classes and instructors for an additional fee. Although virtual fitness is older than covid, the sector’s sales soared last year. (Peloton’s stock grew 440 percent in 2020, but it has been losing ground lately.
The appeal of virtual fitness has been so appealing that Christian Dior was compelled to create a line called Dior Vibe. This digital fitness device is a collaboration between Maria Grazia Chiuri, creative director, and Technogym, an Italian high-end equipment manufacturer. Now couture lovers don’t have to wear Dior. They can now run on wired-in Dior treadmills and then imagine their bodies being “designed” by Dior.
These digital systems promote bodily health and fitness without the need for human interaction. The gym, trainers, and classmates are all reduced to pixels. So, while you are focusing on your body, you can enter another space. You escape the mundane, covid-ridden world. This is another luxury that is rooted in escapism.
Hydra Studios is a gym that has two branches in Manhattan, and more in Miami and Los Angeles. It takes escapism up a notch. Hydra was founded in 2020 by Marie Kloor, a Wall Street professional, and Dan Nielsen. They specialize in “personal, dematerialized” exercise. Members can reserve small- to medium-sized rooms, which are enclosed by heavy curtains, for a monthly membership fee. These mini gyms can only accommodate one person at a given time. Each has a digitally connected cardio device, such as a Technogym bicycle, Hydrow rower, or “smart mirror”, along with iPads that are synced to the machines. These devices provide virtual options, including group classes and digital landscapes, to help you structure your workout.
Hydra’s modernist, neutral decor is soothing and even anesthetizing. It is difficult to see if anyone is in the corridor with its drawn-white curtains. It’s disorienting. You feel like you’re at the gym but are not. You might be among other people. You are cycling or rowing through imagined vistas (The Caribbean!) The Alps! You can actually sit indoors in a space about the same size as a bedroom.
Perhaps this is the way we “do luxury” in a pandemic: We attend to our bodies and simultaneously escape, or transcend, them. Some people find the solitude of gyms like Hydra a luxury. Kloor says that many members love exercising in solitude, as it allows them to forget about their appearances. Luxury can sometimes be found in the absence or display.
Many of us feel that time seems to be moving at a faster pace than usual, and it is happening more quickly than we think. We now know that the pandemic will not end in a clear way. We will not celebrate the end of this struggle. Experts tell us that the coronavirus will become an endemic virus rather than a pandemic and hover over us like a shadow.
Covid, which is a time- and space-based disorientation, is called Covid. This spatial disorientation has been addressed with multiple virtual experiences. It is much more difficult to address temporal disorientation. We cannot escape or simulate time.
Time may be the greatest luxury that can emerge from the pandemic. This might be the most rare and sought-after privilege.