Canadian Critical Luxury Studies

Canadian Critical Luxury Studies: Decentering Luxury is a dynamic new contribution to the study of luxury. The essays in this collection challenge Euro- and US-centric perceptions that bind luxury to either a colonial past or a consumerist present. The book announces a new collective of thinkers who focus on Indigenous and Canadian instances of luxurious production, experiences and sites to propose a new definition of luxury that includes a plurality of regional practices highlighting that Canadian luxury centres on community and connection.

Each of the interdisciplinary contributions analyse luxury from different vantage points to understand why luxury has succeeded or failed in the Canadian context. From the history of the fur trade to the latest Indigenous fashion movement, from the T. Eaton Co.’s 1920s Made-in-Canada campaign to the on-again-off-again Toronto Fashion Week, from Vancouver public art commissions to Montréal’s future-forward fashiontech sector, the essays in this volume explain what makes and breaks Canadian luxury.

These original case studies redefine luxury for Canada – a former colonial possession and contemporary second-tier cultural market – and lay the foundation for the critical study of luxury in other historically secondary geographies that produce, consume and circulate material and symbolic luxuries. The collection ultimately challenges old myths and the mystique surrounding European luxury to give it a new lustre that shines light on those actors who have been historically excluded from its privilege: Indigenous peoples, immigrants, the working classes. It sheds light on the reasons that conventional expressions of luxury may fail in secondary markets and offers guidance for fashiontech innovations that invest in the individual without imposing dehumanizing values of efficiency and rational measurement.

Although focused on the Canadian context, the book will appeal to an international audience of scholarly and industry readers. Its interventions about broadening the focus of luxury studies beyond traditional sites in Western Europe make it an important text for global audiences. It offers an alternate reading of conventional luxury histories, sites and practices; in doing so, it models a national approach to luxury that can be applied to alternate national markets.

Jessica P. Clark is a historian of Britain and empire, with a focus on gender, consumption and labour, and an associate professor of history at Brock University, Ontario, Canada. Nigel Lezama is...read more...