Luxury items, once made by European artisans, fetched a high price due to the craft of making the items by hand in small workshops. But now, although the prices are even more astronomical, the products themselves are really cheaply produced in Chinese factories, similar to those that make Gap socks, or baseball caps. Despite this, they continue to be worn as badges bought on thinning credit.
posted on Nov 24, 2007 - View this thread

These days, you don't have to be rich to have all the right stuff, at least for the night. Going deep or flying high, these days you don't have to be rich, to pretend. Just a good credit card, and no thought for the future.
posted on Jul 19, 2007 - View this thread

Do all your friends already own yachts? Perhaps you should consider getting a luxury submarine.
posted on Jul 16, 2007 - View this thread

Busted! In one of the biggest counterfeit busts in years, a 19-month investigation reached its climax on Tuesday as federal officials conducted early-morning raids throughout the NY metropolitan area, arresting 29 people, seizing more than $230 million in merchandise and ultimately dismantling three operations believed to have imported more than $700 million in fake products over the last 24 months.
posted on Jun 27, 2007 - View this thread

Bling h2o is the invention of Hollywood producer Kevin G. Boyd. It;s water in a frosted glass bottle with a cork and emblazoned with Swarovski crystals. At $24 a 750ml bottle, it's targeted at the super-luxury market. Is water from Tennessee really worth that much? Apparently, for some celebs, it is: "A lot of times when you have some water, people are like, 'You're drinking water?' Instead, you say, 'Naw man, I'm blinging." -- Jamie Foxx
posted on Mar 8, 2007 - View this thread

"Please understand that this is an extremely special piece of furniture, of exceptional quality and design – it is not for everyone by a very very long way and can only be afforded by the lucky few of us with exceptional wealth." (Videos [1, 2, 3.])
posted on Jan 6, 2007 - View this thread

Le Grand Jardin. For only $65m dollars you can own a thousand year old villa along with the bastille that housed The Man in the Iron Mask.
posted on Dec 27, 2005 - View this thread

The world's most expensive restaurants, though even these eateries pale in comparison to the $37,000 lunch and the $10,000 Martini on the Rock, poured over a diamond. As a New York Times food critic defends pricey meals, it is clear that times have changed since another famous Times critic drew letters of condemnation from the Vatican for his expensive dinner in 1975, which itself was a pale shadow of the most legendary costly meal ever, that of Antony and Cleopatra.
posted on Nov 16, 2005 - View this thread

Hotel Godwin. Five-star luxury in Berchtesgaden, Hitler's mountain retreat.
posted on Apr 29, 2005 - View this thread

Getting Bored is Not Allowed at the Plaza Hotel, at least not according to its famous fictional resident, the exhausting, spoiled and infectiously ebullient Eloise. Sadly, though, today's news is anything but boring: the Plaza's new owners announced plans to close the iconic hotel for 18 months, and renovate it to create private condos -- throwing hundreds of employees out of work. It's been said that nothing unimportant ever happens at the Plaza: from its 1907 opening to Truman Capote's 1966 Black and White Ball, the Plaza has hosted literati, glitterati, rock stars, and royalty. It has graced the screen in movies such as Breakfast at Tiffany's and The Great Gatsby, making Hollywood history when it became the first fully on-location film shoot for North by Northwest. Ernest Hemingway told F. Scott Fitzgerald to give his liver to Princeton and his heart to the Plaza; Dorothy Parker got her pink slip from Vanity Fair there. Residents, at various times, included Frank Lloyd Wright, Cary Grant, and Judy Garland. Every President since Taft has stepped through its giant engraved revolving doors. Chef Boyardee of canned-spaghetti fame got his start in its kitchens. No New York tourist's rounds are complete without a bloody mary and some bluepoints at the Oyster Bar, a martini in the Oak Room bar, or tea in the Palm Court, and its French-chateau facade is a Central Park centerpiece. An employees' group and a supporting 'Friends of the Plaza' group have begun working to save the gracious place, with the goal of preserving not only the building and their jobs, but the very idea of the quintessential New York luxury hotel. Almost enough to make folks want the Donald back.
posted on Mar 14, 2005 - View this thread

It takes more than 40 hours to cover Mr. Potato Head with more than 23,000 Swarovski® crystals in 14 different colors.
posted on Oct 6, 2004 - View this thread

A real Gucci bag out of your reach? Don´t worry, just compensate by naming your kid Gucci! Or Lexus, Evian, Enternity.... more brand baby names here.
posted on Dec 27, 2003 - View this thread

An L.A. restaurateur just won a rare 2-pound mushroom in an annual "charity truffle auction" in Santa Monica. The winner paid $35,000 for the truffle after a fierce bidding war between a New York-based restaurant owner and Gunther IV, who placed his bids through a subsidiary due to the fact that he is, in fact, a dog. The canine heir to a vast German fortune lost the auction, and the honor of placing the highest recorded bid ever for a mushroom. Go ahead, read it again. This is all, mind you, before anyone actually got their hands on the giant 'shroom.
posted on Nov 11, 2002 - View this thread

The Brand And Burger Concerto: Luxury And Poverty For All In The U.S.A. Is luxury becoming democratized? Are ostentation and conspicuous consumption not only tolerated now but demanded of anyone but the poorest and least ambitious? As James B.Twitchell, whose well-off father drove a Plymouth, pithily puts it in this adaptation of his book Living It Up: Our Love Affair With Luxury, would you go to a doctor who drove a Plymouth? Well, he confesses he wouldn't. His essay is full of interesting (though perhaps too easily answered) questions. Are time and philantropy really the two remaining luxuries for the truly wealthy? And is it really true almost anyone can now be king for a day or an hour? [I'd add that what he says about the U.S. is even truer of present-day Western Europe, where the stigma previously attached to ostentation was much more powerful among the middle and upper classes than ever it was with rich American WASPs.]
posted on Aug 5, 2002 - View this thread

Worldcom staffers to enjoy all expenses paid cruise. Isn't that nice! You've just contributed to the biggest bankruptcy in U.S. history! What are you going to do now? Eat filet mignon and caviar!
posted on Aug 3, 2002 - View this thread

For The Discerning, Segway-Hating Man About Town: Hammacher-Schlemmer's fantastic Unexpected catalogue is full of classy transportation devices, among countless other fascinating products, with prices to suit all pockets. The Two-Person Submarine is a snip at $62,900 but claustrophic types are well catered for too. There's the Zem 4-person bicycle for $6,499.95; the One Person Helium Balloon for 20K, the popular All-Terrain 2-Person Hovercraft; the very European Vespa motorbike; the extremely enticing Danish Police Runabout at only $5,999.95; the sexy little Amphibious Car for $9,995.95 and many, many more outlandish and distinctive vehicles, from 7 Person tricycles(for you, 16K)to a wooden '54 wooden Mercedes 300SL. For more sedentary gentlefolk, there are Feline Drinking Fountains, Impervious Unbreakable Chip Trays and, for only 25 bucks, a Barbershop Hot Lather Machine. Fancy anything, Madam or Sir?
posted on May 15, 2002 - View this thread

oh glorious rapture, vertu has launched. (flash) the phones (called "instruments" in vertu-speak) are okay, but the real meat seems to be the one-touch vertu concierge: allows one to find theatre tickets, make reservations, or (assumably) order KFC. and, as promised, they are indeed clutch-the-pearls expensive: €6000 to €24000. golly.
posted on Mar 27, 2002 - View this thread

Nike Air Jordan XVII priced at 200.00. Nike unviels this years prize court shoe that comes complete with metal carrying case and CD. But $200? Thats a wholelota Doritos yo!
posted on Feb 4, 2002 - View this thread

Best. Auction. Ever. Check out the details here. Basically, the Scottish whisky makers Chivas Regal is auctioning off 450 "lots" of some of the coolest and most unobtainable things ever: like an audience with the Pope, and performing with the Moscow State Circus. Which would you choose?(via fark)
posted on Sep 7, 2001 - View this thread

Why bother with insurance forms--go to the Luxury Hospital. And they're helping Medicare costs stay low too!! (?)
posted on Feb 4, 2001 - View this thread

I got in!!! Remember that link to Quintessentially a few weeks back? Well, after countless hours of anxious waiting, I finally received my acceptance letter (the complete text of which is inside). At last, I can enjoy the finer things in life - it'll only cost me $600 a year .
posted on Dec 14, 2000 - View this thread