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Miscellaneous 🤷‍♀️ At what point is something "Luxury"?

michaelskis

michaelskis

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lux·u·ry/

ˈləkSH(ə)rē,
ˈləɡZH(ə)rē/

noun
the state of great comfort and extravagant living. "he lived a life of luxury"

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But at what point does it 'create great comfort or extravagant? Personally, I think it is all perspective. I saw a face book advertisement post for luxury tiny homes and my first thought was, "yea, those can't be all that luxurious." But then I thought about all the high-end condos that have the best of the best finishes in the best locations, but just with a lot less square footage than a luxury home.

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And when we think Luxury cars, something like this might come to mind:
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The flip side is I think that the marketing of "Luxury" has eroded its meaning. Years ago when we relocated from MI to NC, we rented an apartment. The website classified it as "Luxury" and showed pictures with stainless steel appliances and all these bells and whistles. When we got there, we noticed it had the cheapest kitchen and bath fixtures and while the appliances were stainless steel, they were the cheapest brands that you can get at the big box hardware realtor.

The question is what does Luxury mean to you? Is it appearance, quality, or does it take both? Are there 'luxury' items that you implement in your life?
 
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When you are an Engineer on the Rock Island Line and its the 1930s, and you get to the Tollgate and you tell the taxman that all you have on board is livestock, but when you are really haulin' Pig Iron, getting away with that is a luxury!!

The Rock Island Line, its a mighty good road!

 
Back in the 1940's and 1950's advertisers used to love to use the word 'deluxe' to describe their products (along with other advertising gems like adding "electro" to the prefix or adding "o-rama" to the suffix of product and business names). However, 'deluxe' fell sharply out of favor by the following decade (the term is essentially meaningless today in terms of advertising). It may be that the word 'luxury' is following a similar trajectory. 'Luxury' now means 'the most a consumer can afford to pay for this product or service'
The appliances in that unit are the finest available
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michaelskis said:
lux·u·ry/

ˈləkSH(ə)rē,
ˈləɡZH(ə)rē/

noun
the state of great comfort and extravagant living. "he lived a life of luxury"


The flip side is I think that the marketing of "Luxury" has eroded its meaning. Years ago when we relocated from MI to NC, we rented an apartment. The website classified it as "Luxury" and showed pictures with stainless steel appliances and all these bells and whistles. When we got there, we noticed it had the cheapest kitchen and bath fixtures and while the appliances were stainless steel, they were the cheapest brands that you can get at the big box hardware realtor.

The question is what does Luxury mean to you? Is it appearance, quality, or does it take both? Are there 'luxury' items that you implement in your life?
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I think people often exchange words incorrectly, which is what drives the meaning of a word down. For instance, the applicances are not luxury, but they have a premium finish. If you showed up with Wolf and Sub Zero appliances, then that would be luxury. Stainless steel isn't luxury, but is an 'upgrade' to the basic white finish.

michaelskis said:
View attachment 65674

Is that Aston Martin really all that much better than that Ford Fusion?
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Better at what, though? The Aston is a low production vehicle with a hand built engine, custom real leather interior, and a tuned suspension design for a sporty, grand touring driving feel. The Ford is a comfortable family sedan with their ubiquitous ecoboost motor, and meant to get you from A to B. The Aston is luxury – you do not need all the fancy materials and a niche vehicle, but you buy it because you can. The Ford is more commonplace, with common features that can be spec’ed with more premium options (like faux leather) but it isn’t luxury.

Luxury also does not mean better. The ecoboost for the Fusion, while recognizing it isn’t the most reliable motor, is still easier to live with than the Aston’s V8. For daily use, the Ford will do a better job in pretty much very category. But I would want the Aston over the Ford.
 
mendelman said:
Fundamentally, no. Same level of basic 'comforts', just orders of magnitude more costly to buy, service and repair.
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They both have four wheels and an engine, but otherwise, I'd imagine the Aston to be on a different planet than the Fusion from a driving dynamics and enjoyment perspective. One is a mass market commodity sedan, the other a high performance GT car.
 
To a large degree its a relative term. Someone without a home or who craves living in the outdoors may think of tiny home as "luxurious". There is no way that I'm going to call a room where I have to move the dishes to sit down or climb a ladder to go to sleep. If I have to empty the greywater tank, not luxury. If its a yacht or private plane that comes with full staff to do all the work when I occasionally use it then it might be.
 
The luxury in car to me is usually the higher grade of leather and better design choices. There are some minor performance upgrades like better suspension, but it's not like any of the luxury cars are super high performance.
 
Faust_Motel said:
I think it's when you go from "this is adequate for my needs," through "this is nicer than I need or want," all the way to "my desire to have this transcends want or need and I'm going to have it mostly because I can."
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I like this definition a lot.

One of the characteristics to me of a luxury is the degree to which it is bespoke. And in that way, luxury doesn't always mean expensive. Something feels luxurious (whether an experience or a thing) when it feels tailored specifically to you. Taking a shirt off the rack and getting it slightly tailored for thirty bucks isn't spending big money, but it feels really, really luxurious when you do and can have pretty profound impacts to how you feel about yourself.
 
Suburb Repairman said:
I like this definition a lot.

One of the characteristics to me of a luxury is the degree to which it is bespoke. And in that way, luxury doesn't always mean expensive. Something feels luxurious (whether an experience or a thing) when it feels tailored specifically to you. Taking a shirt off the rack and getting it slightly tailored for thirty bucks isn't spending big money, but it feels really, really luxurious when you do and can have pretty profound impacts to how you feel about yourself.
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That's a good point. We often think of luxury as being synonymous with expense but it doesn't have to be. Back in college, a six pack of Bud cost $3.00. At the same time, one could also buy a pint bottle of Grolsch Dutch lager for about the same. Both items in absolute terms were fairly inexpensive, but I had to go out of my way to shop the import store to buy Grolsch, and ounce for ounce it cost two or three times as much as Budweiser, but I regarded it as a luxury I was willing to pursue.
 
dw914er said:
I think people often exchange words incorrectly, which is what drives the meaning of a word down. For instance, the applicances are not luxury, but they have a premium finish. If you showed up with Wolf and Sub Zero appliances, then that would be luxury. Stainless steel isn't luxury, but is an 'upgrade' to the basic white finish.



Better at what, though? The Aston is a low production vehicle with a hand built engine, custom real leather interior, and a tuned suspension design for a sporty, grand touring driving feel. The Ford is a comfortable family sedan with their ubiquitous ecoboost motor, and meant to get you from A to B. The Aston is luxury – you do not need all the fancy materials and a niche vehicle, but you buy it because you can. The Ford is more commonplace, with common features that can be spec’ed with more premium options (like faux leather) but it isn’t luxury.

Luxury also does not mean better. The ecoboost for the Fusion, while recognizing it isn’t the most reliable motor, is still easier to live with than the Aston’s V8. For daily use, the Ford will do a better job in pretty much very category. But I would want the Aston over the Ford.
Click to expand...
Go back to Latin roots, lux equals light, so does luxury mean "well-lit? Any room with floor to ceiling drapes can be that
 
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