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What is luxury? At first glance, it seems that we can answer in simple terms and to distinguish between what is luxury and what does not fall into it. But we sense, on reflection, that not everyone will agree on this distinction: luxury to one is not necessarily luxury to another.

The concept of luxury incorporates an aesthetic dimension that refers to a major theme of Western philosophy: How to characterize the notion of beauty?¹ In the twentieth century, the philosopher Theodor W. Adorno expressed the problem in these terms: “We cannot define the concept of beautiful nor give up its concept.”² We believe that it is the same for luxury: without wanting to confuse it with the beautiful, it turns out, upon examination, no less elusive, and, perhaps, not less indispensable.

Therefore, it is probably unrealistic to seek a universal definition of luxury. But this reflection draws our attention to an initial important point: the definition of luxury has varied over time.