The Price of Prestige
lily
(lily)
#1
40 chapter two
geographic diffusion took some time. Thus, the watchtower fashion ar
rived in London and Toulouse at the time when it was already banned in
Italy and was considered archaic and grotesque (Thomson 1993 , 176 ). In
this case, there seems to be a clear connection between the life cycle of the
status symbol and issues of taste, fashion, and aesthetic valuation.
The watchtower example highlights the connection between symbol dif
fusion and spirals of exaggeration. In the absence of state intervention,
conspicuous consumption was likely to devour an increasingly large share
of local resources. The Romans recognized the risk of such trends through
a normative distinction between luxus and luxuria. Whereas luxus referred
to sensuality, splendor, and indulgence, luxuria referred to excess and waste
and, at times, was described as a “social malaise”— the ruinous spending
of inherited assets on worthless demonstrations of wealth (Thomson 1993 ,
2 – 3 ). In the tower mania case, processes of symbol diffusion certainly went
beyond luxus and into the realm of luxuria. As anyone who traces the sky
lines of Dubai, Taipei, Shanghai, or Kuala Lumpur can observe, contem
porary tower mania is alive and well. The economic cost of contemporary
tower mania luxuria became evident when Dubai’s construction of a mil
lionaires’ playground in the middle of the desert, complete with the world’s
tallest tower, led to a financial crash in November 2009.
The Renaissance tower ban was a successful effort to curb the social
cost of luxuria. Throughout history, we can find similar political attempts
(with varying degrees of success) to check spiraling consumption through
the introduction of sumptuary laws. In most cases, sumptuary legislation
regulates consumption based on class and rank. An English 1517 law, for
ex ample, determined the number of courses to be served in banquets based
on the rank of the top attendee: nine courses for a cardinal, six courses for
a lord, and three for those whose annual income exceeded forty pounds
(Hooper 1915 , 435 ). Other laws regulated the color, design, and fabric of
clothing (even underwear), the type and quantity of food, the size of hous
ing, the style of furniture, the length of swords, and even the size and dress
ing of children’s dolls (Hooper 1915 ; White 2014 ; Benhamou 1989 ; Shively
1964 , 135 ). Excesses of fashion, for example, were seen as drivers of infla
tion, trade deficits, and vice and even as strategic liabilities in war. In 1356 ,
during the battle of Poitiers, dismounted French cavalry discovered that
their fashionable long toed footwear, an exaggerated shoe that was popular
among medieval upper classes, was not suitable for walking, let alone fight
ing in the mud. Many had to chop parts of their shoes off in order to be
able to fight. The resulting defeat was followed by sumptuary restrictions
